The Hunter's Maze
by stcrmpilot
Summary: Donna and the Doctor wake up in a labyrinth with three strange aliens, to find that they have been chosen as sacrifices to an unknown monster. But not all is as it appears; outside the Maze, a notorious hunting event is getting started, and the Doctor and company are prime targets.
1. Chapter 1

Donna woke with a start. Like most mornings, it only took her a second to realize this was a bad call. Waking up was just about the worst thing you could do, in her experience, and why she did it every single day was beyond her. This day, however, was already proving worse than most.

She went to sit up, and regretted it. Pain shot through her head, and she squeezed her eyes shut again with a groan, falling back onto her pillow. Only, she wasn't lying on a pillow; she was lying on something very hard and very cold, and it hurt very much to fall back onto it. Was she on the floor?

 _Oh, for God's sake, if you've been out drinking again…_ she threatened herself, though it was rather half-hearted. She couldn't muster up an actual punishment—she was already falling back asleep. And then she wasn't, because she became aware that she wasn't lying on carpet or hardwood. It was stone. That wasn't right.

Wincing, she rolled over on her back and swept her hair out of her eyes. She'd been hoping for her own ceiling in her own bedroom. Instead, she found herself staring up at complete darkness. Forgetting her headache and drowsiness, she scrambled to a kneeling position and looked around. She was in a room, less than four by four meters, with walls and floor made of rough stone bricks. The ceiling was not the void of space, as she had initially feared; it was simply too high to see in the dim glow of a single torch mounted on one wall. There were no windows, no door, and no lights. The room was completely barren.

A million questions swirled through her mind, but she found she couldn't grasp any of them. She searched her memory for any clue as to what had happened, and came up with nothing. Her brain felt like it was stuffed with cotton; she couldn't think properly, and any focus eluded her. She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts, but regretted it as soon as the pain came back in full strength.

No, she had no clue where she was. She could only assume she'd gotten herself into deep trouble. Panic rose in her chest, her heartbeat starting to pick up. It was far too tight in there for her liking; she'd never been particularly claustrophobic, but now she wasn't quite convinced the walls weren't moving in on her.

 _Alright, just stay calm,_ she told herself, focusing on taking deep breaths. Glad for the cool breeze wafting from above, she pulled herself to her feet with a wince and began wandering the limited space available, inspecting her surroundings. She felt oddly heavy, as if the gravity were stronger than it should have been, though she supposed it could be a side effect of whatever sedative had been used to get her into this strange pit. Was she on Earth? What had the Doctor gotten them into this time?

 _The Doctor!_ Where'd he gone?

"Well, that's just typical," Donna muttered.

Then her eyes fell upon a roll of what seemed to be parchment, hanging from the wall sconce. Curiosity dulled the fear for a brief moment and she held onto the feeling—the Doctor wouldn't let fear get in the way of investigating, she told herself. Working the scroll out of the tie that held it to the bracket, she unravelled it slowly, careful not to tear the paper.

 _WE THANK YOU FOR YOUR SACRIFICE_ , it read, in handwritten black ink.

A chill ran down her spine.

"Well, what the bloody hell does that mean?" she exclaimed out loud, suddenly uncomfortable with the silence. "'Sacrifice', what sacrifice?"

At that moment, a deep groan shook the floor and walls. Rusty mechanics squealed as they shifted, somewhere far, far below. The stone began to rumble and shake; Donna looked around wildly for some sort of escape. It had suddenly occurred to her that she was trapped in this tiny pit, and would probably never be found if it collapsed. She flung herself at the wall, feeling around for a hidden doorway or a loose brick, but then, inexplicably, the floor was rising beneath her feet.

It gave a sharp jolt, throwing her to the ground. She could do nothing but hold on as she was carried up on the stone platform, vibrating as it ground deafeningly against the walls. The sconce was knocked clean out of the wall as the floor rose, sending the torch flying across the room. Donna lunged for it but it hit the ground and went out, plunging the shaking room into complete darkness. Heart pounding, head spinning, she stayed where she was, curled up on the floor, and covered her face with her arms against the constant rain of dust and small rocks. She lay there, trying not to panic, until at last the room stopped moving with a loud _clunk_. It took her a moment of blinking into the darkness, after everything had gone still and quiet, to realize that she had been deposited into a new room.

A keening wail split the silence. She scrambled to her feet, hand pressed to her mouth to stifle a gasp, and strained to adjust to the low light. There was something else there with her—she could hear scuffling and voices, echoing like she was in a vast chamber. Turning on the spot, trying to locate the source of the noise, she forced herself to slow her breathing. She didn't want whatever was there to hear her.

The cry sounded again, from directly ahead of her. Nearly tripping over her own feet, Donna backed away—and screamed as she walked right into another person.

"Donna! Donna, it's me," said the figure in the darkness.

"Doctor!" She threw her arms around him, shaking from the adrenaline and almost giddy with relief. The presence of the alien man made the situation feel a whole lot more familiar.

"Easy," he hushed, hugging her back. He dropped his voice so only she could hear. "We're not alone in here."

Her eyes were just starting to adjust; there was one torch set in the floor near them, casting a dim orange glow over the space in which she'd ended up. There wasn't much to see, as there weren't any other sources of light, but the echo of their voices revealed that the little pit had opened up into a massive cavern. The ceiling was still too high for the firelight to reach. Two other beings stood where their own platforms had placed them, little more than dark silhouettes.

Before she could properly process what she was seeing, the Doctor was springing into action. Something had caught his eye—a pile of feathers curled up on the stone floor. As she eyed it, trying to figure out what it was, another wail escaped from somewhere within the bundle.

The creature on the floor had its arms—wings?—wrapped around its head. It was shivering, whimpering quietly as the Doctor crouched down next to it.

He placed a very light hand on its shaking body. "Hello there," he said gently. "How about you just sit up a bit? Nothing's gonna hurt you."

The creature shuddered, and slowly lowered one appendage away from its face. It blinked up at them with one wide, doe-like eye. Deciding to trust the Doctor, it pushed itself upright with great hesitation, revealing a sharp, angular face fringed with wispy feathers and a beak in place of a mouth.

"What is that?" Donna asked the Doctor, not quite discreetly enough for the alien to miss.

"Donna," he chided, settling into a cross-legged position. "Why don't we start with names?" he told it. "I'm the Doctor, and this is Donna."

The bird-creature took a few deep, whistling breaths before it could compose itself enough to speak. "My name is Hssii'shi," it replied at last, beak clicking with each syllable, "of the colonies on Cal'shi."

The Doctor hummed in understanding. "He's a Calidriss," he explained to Donna. Then, to Hssii'shi, "No wonder you don't like this place."

Hssii'shi nodded vigorously. "It smells of underground. Oh…" he moaned, looking timorously around the cavern. "Of all places, why here?"

He seemed like he wanted to start again with the wailing, but the Doctor kept him talking.

"Tell me, Hssii'shi, do you know how you got here?"

He thought for a moment, ruffling his feathers, and shook his head.

"Donna?"

"I got nothing," she said.

The Doctor stood up. "Anyone? Can either of you remember how you got here?"

The two others standing near them gave murmurs confirming that they did not.

"Alright. Then I guess it's time for introductions." He sat down next to Donna and patted the floor, indicating that the others should do the same.

Hesitantly, one more figure sat down—the other crossed its arms and remained standing, removed from the group. It was hard to make out its features, but Donna thought she caught a glimpse of red skin and horns sticking out of a hairless head. Now that the other had taken a seat, she could see that they were all clearly from different worlds, though none were of a species she knew.

The Doctor prodded her shoulder, indicating that she should start them off.

"Oh. Well, I'm Donna. I'm human." She looked to the Doctor, wondering whether that was enough information.

"Wonderful," the Doctor said. He surveyed the group, with a glance at the one who'd refused to sit. "My name is the Doctor and I'm a Time Lord. Your go," he urged the avian to his left.

He gave a start. "Right. Right, my name is Hssii'shi, and I'm from Cal'shi."

"I've been to Cal'shi," remarked an alien resembling an incredibly gaunt, pale man, wearing what looked to Donna like a toga. He spoke slowly, his voice breathy and low, but she found she could hear him quite clearly. "A lovely planet. I am Narriss Athar of Ventos."

"Making friends already," said the Doctor cheerily, though his eyes seemed to narrow imperceptibly. Maybe it was the light, Donna figured, but she made a mental note to ask him about this… Narriss, once they were alone.

He nodded to the red, horned alien who had remained standing.

"Dakro," she grumbled, foregoing a real introduction. She was dressed much more practically than Narriss—or Donna, who was getting a bit cold, now she thought about it—with a well-worn jacket, pants with more pockets than could really be justified, and muddied black boots. Her golden eyes flashed at the seated group, and Donna could just see the short spikes lining her brow and circling her head. "My species and planet of origin are my own business."

"Aw, c'mon," the Doctor needled. When he got nothing but a glare, he shrugged. "So! Now that we all know each other, does anyone know where we are?"

Donna shot him a surprised look. "I thought you would know."

He wrinkled his nose. "'Fraid not, this time. I can't be expected to know every old stone building I wind up in, can I? But I will tell you this," he added, "wherever we are isn't nearly as old as it looks, and it isn't Earth. Someone's collected us all and brought us here."

"How did we get here, then?" Hssii'shi asked, feathered tail twitching across the ground.

"I would assume we were sedated and put in those rooms against our will," Narriss said. "If I am remembering correctly, I was just departing from the city spaceport. Then, everything goes blank."

The Doctor perked up. "Yes, good. Donna, what were you doing? What's the last thing you can remember?"

Donna thought for a minute, frowning in concentration. Any attempt to dig up memories brought fresh pain to her head. "I remember doing errands. On Earth," she added, in case the Doctor assumed otherwise. "Then… you showed up, I think. And that's it."

He nodded, staring off into space. "That's about all I've got as well. Hssii'shi?"

The little bird clicked his beak a few times. "I remember being on the planet Lorr. I… I went on a tour, to see the jungles. Oh—then I boarded a flight going back to the Core…" He gave a few rapid shakes of his head, as if trying to dislodge another memory. "That's all."

Looking rather pained to be doing so, Dakro spoke up.

"I remember something."

The Doctor, looking pleasantly surprised, tilted his head to show he was listening.

"I have two livers," she began. "I guess the sedative didn't work so well on me. I remember being on my ship—we were hauling supplies and ammo to the Essak Nebula."

"Essak," he interrupted thoughtfully. "Is there a war on?"

Dakro gave a sharp laugh. "Where've you been?"

"Oh, I'm really not from around here." He leaned over and whispered to Donna, "This'll be about the twenty-sixth century."

Raising one horn-studded brow, she continued. "Next thing I know, the ship's being fired on. We were right near the nebula when we were boarded by a vessel about five times our size; they jammed our communications and took out our engines, then dragged us into a docking bay." She paused for a moment. "I don't know what happened to the others, but I guess that's when they got me."

"Well, that narrows it down, then," the Doctor mused. "Lorr and Ventos are both near the nebula; I'm betting this planet is too."

Donna was beginning to feel overwhelmed. She was the only one in the group who didn't know a thing about the Essak Nebula, or whatever war was going on right then, or where in the universe they could possibly be. It was only the Doctor's presence that let her hang on to some semblance of calm; she reminded herself that he would surely get them out, wherever they were, and that he would explain everything he knew when he got the chance. She made an effort to unclench her fists, and she realized that she was still holding the note she had found in her room.

"Wait!" She unfurled the now-crumpled paper. "Did anyone else find one of these?"

Narriss nodded slowly, and produced an identical scroll from somewhere within his robes. The Doctor pulled his out of a pocket, and Dakro did the same; Hssii'shi, who had not explored his cell at all, didn't have one.

"'We thank you for your sacrifice,'" Donna read. "What does it mean?"

"Well, I would guess that someone has fallen under the impression that we are sacrifices," Narriss hummed.

"But to what?" the Doctor murmured, examining the parchment closely.

Something moved in the far periphery of Donna's vision. She whipped around, heart in her throat, to see that torches at the far end of the hall were lighting themselves. Like lightbulbs, they flickered on all the way down the hall, allowing them to see properly. Her mouth fell open.

Hundreds of torches had been placed up and down the stone pillars, all through the hall. In the light, the space dwarfed the six beings. The ceiling was arched, at its highest point no less than twenty meters above the ground. Massive, thick veins of glittering gold were embedded in the stone, streaking lengthwise across the ceiling like molten metal. The pillars lined both sides of the hall, dark and smooth, marbled in the same gold as the ceiling. Tucked behind them were two stories of hallways with a number of archways leading out into whatever lay beyond this room, reminding Donna of images she'd seen of the Palace of Versailles. Where the little square holes in the floor had been, the stone now blended in seamlessly. At the other end, as the final torches were lit, she saw a massive pair of ornate wooden doors.

The Doctor stood, having stowed his scroll inside his jacket, and pulled Donna up with him. "Well, isn't that interesting," he murmured.

The rest of the group was staring upwards, open-mouthed—or rather, open-beaked, in Hssii'shi's case. Then Donna took her gaze away from the grand hall and noticed another person, crumpled on the ground a ways away from the bunch.

"Doctor!" She rushed over to the sixth detainee. This being looked sort of like a human woman, with bluish skin and brown markings—tattoos?—all over her face. Her navy hair was tied back messily, and she wore something resembling medical scrubs and a long black lab coat. She lay very still. Donna felt a sinking sensation come over her.

The Doctor knelt next to her and took her pulse. For a long moment, he didn't move. Then he shook his head. "She's dead," he muttered.

"What happened to her?" Narriss had glided up behind them and now peered over Donna's shoulder.

"Bad reaction to the sedative, I'd guess. Blue skin indicates her species' blood is copper-based, they do tend to be rather sensitive to foreign chemicals." Sighing deeply, he stood and straightened his dirt-smudged jacket.

"Can't we do something?" Donna asked. "It's not right to leave her here."

The Doctor glanced around the hall. "I don't think anyone's going to take her back where they found her. I'm sorry, Donna. We can't bring her with us."

He looked genuinely regretful, and just a little bit angry. Donna realized that their captors, whoever they may be, had just crossed a line with their carelessness. She nodded, understanding but still disappointed.

Seeing the body seemed to be the last straw for Dakro, who came striding up to the Doctor with her lip curled in a snarl.

"Where the hell are we?" she demanded.

The Doctor glanced at her, seemingly unruffled, and then back to the hall. "Why do you think I would know?"

"I think you know a lot more than you let on," she said; a borderline accusation.

Now the others were staring at him too, but he took no notice. He was already wandering towards the wooden door at the end of the hall as he took in every detail of the place. With a final glance at the poor young woman, Donna went after him.

She prodded him in the arm, and he paused to look down at her. "You do know something, don't you?" she reckoned. "C'mon, what is it?"

"Know? Nothing. Not a thing." He squinted up, as if looking for something specific. "But I do suspect…" He trailed off, and took off at a brisk walk towards the door.

Donna glanced back at the three aliens, who looked quite confused, gave an apologetic shrug, and jogged after him.

"Suspect what, Doctor?" she prompted him when she caught up.

He grimaced. "Ah… it's just a theory, really," he said in a low, soft voice.

"Well, I'm getting the feeling the spiky one back there isn't going to be happy with that," she remarked, tossing a glance behind her.

"She'll have to wait. But," he added, coming to a stop with his back to the door, "try not to antagonize her. If we're to get out of this, we need them on our side."

Donna sighed, but didn't protest.

Hssii'shi came trotting up to them, but stopped a good ways from the door, unwilling to get too close just yet. He walked not unlike an ostrich, Donna noticed; the joints of his long, bony legs—located where a human's knees would be—bent backwards. He held his feathered arms tucked tightly at his sides, and he had a tendency to lean forward and stick his lengthy neck out as he moved. Narriss, looking less like a ghoul in the light, followed close behind, while Dakro hung back, watching attentively.

As Donna turned her attention back to the Doctor, a piece of paper nailed to the wall to her left caught her eye. "Oi! What's that?"

Pausing in his scan of the great hall, the Doctor looked where she was pointing and raised an eyebrow. Careful not to damage it, he tore it off the nail and read it before presenting it to her, his expression inscrutable.

Trying her best to ignore the creeping feeling of dread, Donna read the note out loud.

"'Labyrinth ahead.'" Then, in smaller text: "'The Beast awaits.'"

An unnerved hush fell over the group. They regarded each other wordlessly for a moment, then Hssii'shi began to pace in circles, warbling in distress. Narriss shivered, despite looking as if he had an internal body temperature of zero. Donna ran her eyes over the words again, making sure she had read them correctly. _The Beast._ That didn't sound so good.

"Oh, you are a beauty!" came the Doctor's exclamation, utterly at odds with the tense mood.

Donna held back a sigh. "What is it now?"

"Would you look at these!" he exalted, running both hands along the carvings in the door. "Hand-done, if I'm not mistaken."

"Doctor, can we save the connoisseurship for later? I think we have a bigger issue here!"

"No, Donna, look at them," he insisted. He pulled her away from the doors so she could see the carvings in their full height.

It was an incredibly detailed image of an incredibly convoluted circular maze. There was little to show scale, but from the size of the room they were in Donna guessed the whole thing could span kilometres. Along the edges of the carvings were symbols that might have been text—she couldn't tell. They vaguely resembled Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. At the very bottom of the diagram was a rectangular room that she assumed was the one they were standing in; about a dozen different paths branched off of it, including one behind the doors they faced, which seemed to meander towards the centre of the maze. And as she attempted to trace the path, her eyes came upon the very middle of the carving, which featured a face that vaguely resembled that of a wolf, glaring down at them with bared teeth and red gemstones for eyes.

"Well… found the Beast," she remarked, in a weak attempt at humour.

"I didn't sign up to be eaten," Narriss hissed, evidently unamused.

Hssii'shi's wailing only increased in volume.

"Alright, everybody calm down," the Doctor ordered.

Donna snorted. "Oh, that's gonna help."

"Listen!" He stared each of them in the eye to make sure they wouldn't speak again. "Alright. If we're going to make it out of this place, you're going to have to trust me. At least a little," he added, sensing that Dakro took objection to that. "And we will make it out of here."

"I think our best chance of surviving would be you telling us what you know," Dakro said pointedly.

The Doctor looked pained for a second before he sighed and gave in. "Fine. The technology involved in building something like this must be immense; this place has been designed to look much older and much less advanced than it is. Someone would really like us to believe we've been left alone in here with something that wants to eat us. First thing you do when you have a giant maze, purposefully made to look like it's been abandoned for ages, and all the technology you could hope for?" His voice dropped to almost a whisper. "Install a security system."

"So we're being watched," Dakro stated. "Why?"

He shook his head. "I don't know yet, but I imagine it could be to make sure that this Beast ends up getting its sacrifices. And you know what else?" He turned to Donna. "The TARDIS seems to be having trouble translating that writing on the doorway. So either we're inside some sort of… weak psychic shielding, enough to interfere with written language but not strong enough to stop us all being able to talk… or it's been destroyed."

"That sounds bad," Donna guessed.

"Ah, could be worse. At least we aren't on Klom. Have you got your phone?" he asked abruptly.

Frowning, Donna went through all her pockets and found nothing.

"Shame," he said, "I was hoping to get a picture, see if we can use it as a map. No one else has any technology?"

They each checked anywhere that they could have left something useful, and each came up empty-handed. The Doctor patted himself down as well, and a look of distress came over his face. Then, struck by an idea, he lifted up a leg and began hopping around on one foot, trying to untie his shoe. When he managed to work it off, out came his sonic screwdriver.

"Well, at least there's some good news," he said, twiddling it between his fingers before he stowed it inside his jacket and worked his shoe back on. "I must've hid it before they captured us. How clever of me!"

"What is it?" Dakro asked.

"It's my sonic," the Doctor replied joyously, as if that were helpful. He clasped his hands together. "Well. Shall we see where this leads?"

Donna was tempted to say no, but she stood back as the Doctor threw all his weight against the doors. With a great wooden creak they swung slowly outwards, splitting the ornate carvings in two. Even Hssii'shi had gone quiet; they hardly dared to breathe. With a final push, the Doctor flung the doors all the way open. They crashed against the walls, leaving nothing between the group and the labyrinth.

The tunnel that lay ahead of them was a world away from the ornate entrance hall at their backs. Gone were the polished marble and gold accents, replaced by rough stone bricks that made up the walls, floor and ceiling. It was as if the designers had only intended to show off with the entrance, before making it clear they were not honoured guests here. The tunnel wasn't cramped, at around ten meters tall by ten wide, but the torches on the walls were placed far apart, so that the darkness seemed to press in on them. A warm breeze wafted down the tunnel like the breath of a great monster, carrying a hint of decay and the sharp smell of wet stone. This was a real, proper Labyrinth, and something about it unsettled Donna greatly.

"Alright then!" The Doctor turned and spread his arms wide in invitation, like he was presenting something spectacular rather than a dark, damp hole. When no one moved, he folded them across his chest.

"Aw, come on. I know you're curious." He gave that familiar manic grin, eyes gleaming in the dim light. "What's down there? Why are we here? You don't want to find out?"

"Not particularly," Dakro muttered.

He regarded her for a moment, gaze dark and unreadable; Donna got the feeling he was looking right into her. For whatever reason, they seemed to have developed an instant rivalry, and she didn't believe it was just a difference in leadership styles. It was something else, she was sure of it, and she was determined to find out. _Add it to the list,_ she sighed inwardly. There were many things that baffled her about the current situation.

"If there's a way out, it's down there," he told her. "You don't have to come with us, but believe me: we're your best chance at survival."

She held his gaze and contemplated this. Finally, she gave an imperceptible nod.

The Doctor smiled, and the tension vanished into thin air. "Right then." He offered Donna his arm, and she joined him at the cusp of the tunnel. "We're off."


	2. Chapter 2

Tarik Amir sighed deeply. His intercom was chiming; it would be the dockhands, letting him know that the ships had arrived. In a few short minutes, he would be torn out of his quiet enjoyment of the sprawling property where he spent his time those days. Although he quite liked this event—in fact, he looked forward to it each year, reveling in the preparations more than any of his other endeavours—the participants left much to be desired. If only he could play host without ever interacting with his guests. Perhaps that was something to work on for next year…

That year, he was still faced with a week of tending to a group of, in his experience, what may well be some of the least civilized beings a man could drag from the dark corners of the galaxy. It would only be a week. He had to make a living somehow. And yet, for a man who made a majority of his living working with bounty hunters, he held a surprising amount of contempt for bounty hunters.

He put the call through.

"Yes?" he asked, letting his distaste seep into his tone.

"The guests will be arriving shortly," came the falsely pleasant voice of a worker droid.

"Yes, thank you. I'll be there in a moment."

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Tarik ended the call with a wave of his hand and strolled towards the window stretching across one wall of his bedroom, in no great hurry to meet the new arrivals. He surveyed the view from the edge of a barren, rocky hill: a landscape of jumbled brown and grey, wild and untarnished, with spectacularly intricate rock formations jutting out of the earth. The only vegetation on this side of the planet was crispy and beige, and had been that way for as long as life had existed on the world. In the very far distance, gentle sloping mountains interrupted the horizon; he'd built this room around that view. There were no days or nights on Frontier Seven—the planet was tidally locked to its sun, and Tarik made his home on the bright half—but he had always figured that if there were, those mountains would make for a spectacular sunset.

Currently, however, the view was obscured by a large space cruiser, resting on a landing platform several kilometers from the house, next to two other, smaller starships. The ship was nice enough, sleek and elegant, obviously meant to show off its owner's wealth and prestige, but Tarik wrinkled his nose. _Excessive_ , he thought. _Arrogant. Blocking my view_. He reminded himself to take a note of which one of his guests owned that ship, and to throw a few extra obstacles their way once the event got started.

Waving a security droid from its post at the door to accompany him, Tarik made his way down the hallway, down a spiral staircase, and across the foyer to the front entrance. As he stepped outside, the hovercar carrying his guests appeared around the bend of the road leading up to the property. He sighed once more, and arranged his face into a pleasant, welcoming mask. Bounty hunters could be a touchy bunch, and he had no interest in being murdered.

The droid driving the vehicle pulled into the crescent road in front of the house and stopped. Immediately, the door was flung open and a hulking alien stepped out. He was a Hazrian: a brown-scaled raptor-like creature with a long face, a tail, and teeth and claws that were entirely too sharp for Tarik's liking. Priak Marrill had been lined up for this excursion all year, and rumours that he was to be invited had been circulating for even longer. He was feared among bounty hunters operating as far away as the Core Worlds—mainly because he had a grisly reputation for eating his targets, as long as his employer didn't need the body in one piece. Tarik was a clean, orderly person, and for the last couple years he had debated whether to allow Priak to participate, despite his long-standing fame. He wanted no part in that sort of barbarism. But in the end, he had decided it could only add to the experience. As long as he didn't have to see it.

Priak slunk towards him, surprisingly light on his feet for a being of his size. He wore some sort of heavy fabric over his legs and torso and a bandolier across his chest; he didn't bother with armour, as a Hazrian's scales were capable of resisting most any attack. A rifle nearly as tall as a human was clenched in one three-fingered hand, and he had a number of knives strapped to his body, but Tarik knew from his research that he rarely used the weapons. They would spoil his fun.

"Greetings," Priak said. There was an undertone of a hiss in his voice, and his fangs flashed as he spoke. "It is an honour to participate in this event."

Tarik knew better than to mistake his formality for respect; Hazrians just talked like that. "It is an honour to have you," he replied smoothly

The next hunter to dismount from the transport resembled a wolf from back on Earth. Dev Rah Yin, his name was, from only a couple systems away. As he was covered from ears to tail in coarse black fur, Dev did not wear any clothes or accessories beyond the blaster and survival packs on his hip. He wasn't nearly as well known as the others, but Tarik never could pass up the opportunity to throw a canine alien into the mix. It was unfortunate that the Thilian preferred not to get his hands dirty—the targets would have gotten a kick out of being chased down by a giant wolf on all fours—but he would do.

Dev did not speak, but gave Tarik a simple nod as he joined Priak in retrieving their luggage from the back of the truck. The third hunter did not have any extra bags or cases; she carried everything she needed in her backpack. She was human, but her species was indiscernible just from looking at her. Dressed in brown and grey utilitarian clothing, and a helmet and mask that ensured her face was completely hidden from view, she looked more bounty hunter than either of the others. Though she was not as well-known as Priak, Tarik knew full well that this was purposeful. She was the kind of hunter people went to when they needed a job done as discreetly as possible and had the money to make it happen.

He offered her his hand as she approached. "Tarik Amir," he introduced himself. "Welcome to Frontier Seven."

"Kai." She shook it curtly. Her voice sounded mechanical and harsh filtered through the mask; exactly the opposite of what Tarik liked in a person, especially a fellow human.

Tarik clasped his hands behind his back as the other two hunters joined her. "Allow me to show you to your rooms."

He spun on his heel and strolled up the walkway to the grand entrance, through the elaborate carved wooden door, and into the front foyer. It was a great pleasure of his, arranging his house each year to show off his immense wealth to the hunters in a subtle, classy way. The room's polished marble floor was completely seamless from wall to wall, adorned with a very old, hand-spun rug from Valnax, which he had placed artfully between the two curving staircases on either side of the room. Overhead, a genuine galdrium chandelier hung from the lofty ceiling, spinning slowly to provoke a soft golden glow from the crystals. Various other antiques—rare enough to be impressive but not so expensive that anyone would go through the trouble of stealing one—were situated around the room, but it was such a large space that the decorations still felt sparse. The hunters, despite their best efforts to appear perfectly at home, were not used to this level of luxury, and seemed cautious to disturb even a speck of dust.

They headed up the stairs and into the east wing, where a number of guest rooms were located. The rooms were not as flashy as the foyer, but they were extremely comfortable. If they wanted, the hunters could probably pass the whole week without leaving their quarters. But Tarik knew they weren't paying for a fancy vacation; they were here for the main event.

"If you would all leave your bags in your rooms, I will show you to the terrace," Tarik instructed, handing them each a keycard. "Your cards will allow you to access your rooms and any others you're authorized to be in. If you press the scanner on the back it will summon a droid to assist you."

They nodded their understanding and left their gear in their respective quarters. Heading back down the corridor, Tarik led the hunters up another flight of stairs and to a room at the back of the mansion that opened onto a large balcony. Casually, as if he'd seen it a thousand times—which he had, of course, but in truth it still took his breath away—he meandered up to the railing and leaned his elbows on it. He watched their reactions out of the corner of his eye, and was pleased by what he saw.

The terrace overlooked a vast swath of the mountainous landscape of Frontier Seven, but it was not like the view from the front of the house. They were standing over the edge of a gargantuan pit that had been dug out of a valley, spanning kilometres in each direction. Inside the pit was a circular stone structure, several storeys tall: the Maze, Tarik called it. It was, far and away, the most ambitious construction project that had ever been attempted on this backwater world.

"What's the haul like this year?" asked Kai. She had removed the mask for the time being, but her expression remained annoyingly unreadable.

Tarik gave a low chuckle. "I think you'll find them entertaining, to say the least. One young Calidriss, a Korridian, an Essian, two humans…" He paused. "And one Pallori."

The hunters took a moment to ponder this; a sly smile spread across Kai's face as she realized exactly what it meant.

"How bold," Priak remarked, tongue flicking between his lips as if tasting the air for a trace of his prey.

"An impressive variety," said Dev. "Where'd you find them?"

"Passing by." Tarik made a noncommittal hand gesture. "The humans had the strangest ship, now you mention it, I've never seen anything like it. But no matter. They're in there now."

"And the Pallori won't cause any trouble?"

"It can hardly cause _you_ any trouble, now can it? The other targets, however…" He laughed. "For those of you who have not encountered one before, the Pallori are an old species, very proud, very set in their ways. There is a maze that appears in their folklore as a sort of prison, holding an ancient beast that demands sacrifices each year as the planet reaches its furthest point from the sun—don't ask me where the myth comes from, I do not know. It is still common for their people to believe in this legend, or at least imagine that it could be true, even though most of their people have spread out and integrated into the wider galaxy. I trust that the one I have captured will be enough to… cause a disruption, upon realizing where it is." He gave Kai a crooked smile. "It's sure to be a fascinating experience."

"When will they be released?" asked Dev, unable to keep the excitement from his voice.

"One hour." Tarik turned swiftly away from the Maze, and started back into the house. "You should prepare." Then he paused, and turned back.

"If I may ask, which of you owns the _lovely_ cruiser I spotted earlier?"

"That would be mine," said Kai, not a hint of bragging in her voice. In fact, it sounded more like a challenge to him.

Tarik smiled tightly. "Excellent."

* * *

"Doctor, where exactly are we going?"

Donna was quite sure they'd been walking for hours, and she was quite sure that they weren't heading in any particular direction. It was impossible to tell what time it was, even day from night, as there were no windows anywhere in the maze. She didn't know whether they were underground or not, or even on the ground at all, and the disorientation was getting to her. The air was damp and chilly, and she was still shivering even though the Doctor had given her his jacket; the four aliens seemed to be better equipped for the cold than she was. Now the initial surprise of waking up in a pit had worn off, she was getting a bit fed up with wandering aimlessly through this stone labyrinth, and almost wished that something exciting would happen.

"Well, the centre, of course," answered the Doctor. "Where else?"

"But why? What do you think will be there?"

"Ideally, a way out." He raised his eyebrows. "But probably not."

Donna groaned inwardly. "You're hoping to run into this Beast, aren't you?"

"Well… it'd be a shame to leave without, wouldn't it?"

"No," Dakro interjected. "No, it wouldn't."

"And how will we be getting out, exactly?" asked Narriss.

It was then that Donna realized she hadn't heard him speak at all since they'd left the grand hall. She hadn't forgotten the look the Doctor had given him when he'd introduced himself, but there had been no opportunity to ask him about it. Narriss was, in appearance and in manner, a very strange being, and she wasn't sure how she felt about him. Right now, she got the feeling that he was deep in thought about something—perhaps the fact that he'd been put in a maze, that was a definite possibility—but for some reason she didn't fancy asking what.

"Not quite sure yet," came the Doctor's absentminded response.

Narriss was quiet for a moment. Then, he said, "How do you know there is a way out?"

The Doctor shot him that same scrutinizing look before he turned back to the gloomy corridor ahead. "I have a very strong suspicion we won't be the only ones coming and going." He turned suddenly to Donna. "Any ideas?"

Caught off guard, and feeling just a bit like a student called on in class, Donna struggled to come up with an answer. "Well… if there is some sort of 'Beast' in here, I guess someone's got to feed the thing, right? And what would be the point? I mean, I wouldn't build a maze I couldn't even get into."

"There you have it." The Doctor gave Narriss a satisfied smile. "Good enough?"

Narriss nodded ever so slightly, but didn't look all that convinced.

"You know, I did once visit a planet with an actual beast that the native species made sacrifices to," noted the Doctor. "It started out as a highly volcanic world, so it had all these tunnels and chambers beneath the surface, and there was this– Oi! What's that?"

Donna started at his exclamation and looked where he was pointing. It was a bug, sitting on the wall, or at least it looked like one to her. But the Doctor seemed to think it important, for he had sprung forward and grabbed the thing, quick as a whip. He held it up so Donna could see as it writhed and struggled between his fingers. She wrinkled her nose; she hated bugs.

"Surveillance," he murmured. Out of a pocket in his shirt he whipped out a pair of glasses—which Donna knew he didn't really need, he just liked the way they looked—and put them on to squint closely at the little bug.

"That thing's a camera?" asked Dakro.

"Yup. Unmanned." He grabbed his sonic screwdriver and began scanning it. "There probably isn't anyone watching this feed right now, I'd bet it goes active once it senses movement, or body heat—don't worry, I've disabled it," he added, talking too fast for Donna to process what he said. But now it had stopped moving, she could indeed see that it was made of metal, with wire antennae and a tiny lens where its eyes should be.

"Now let's see here…"

As he fiddled with the sonic, Hssii'shi sidled up, clicking his beak as a human would smack their lips. He was looking at the robotic bug with an appetite that Donna had no desire to think about. None of them had eaten in hours now, she realized. She would probably also feel hungry, if she weren't preoccupied by the thought of how juicy a bug of that size would be, were it a real bug. Shuddering, she turned her focus back to the Doctor.

"Aren't you a beauty?" he was praising the device. "If I can just– Aha!" He laughed triumphantly. "It's fully automated, see, so it's programmed with a complete map of the area it has to patrol. Which, in this case…" Flicking a button on the sonic that set it beeping rhythmically, a wide grin spread across his face. "Is a great big chunk of the maze."

"We have a map?" Narriss asked incredulously.

"Oh yes!" crowed the Doctor. He took a few steps away from the others, shoved his glasses back in his pocket and spun around a couple times; when he faced down the corridor, the beeping of his sonic resolved to a steady whine, indicating that it was the correct path. Flicking it off again, he stowed it and the robotic insect away, took Donna's arm and started off in the right direction. Footsteps echoed off the rock as the others followed.

Despite the great advantage they had gained, Donna found her excitement fading quickly. She was tired and cold, her feet hurt, the torches seemed to be getting further and further apart, darkening the passageways even more, and now that Hssii'shi had no bugs to drool over she was feeling quite hungry. It seemed every time the Doctor reached a new fork and did the beepy thing with the sonic his energy only multiplied, while the rest of the group lagged behind. After at least another half an hour of walking, going back and forth in an increasingly maddening series of twists and turns, they entered one corridor and came to face a dead end.

Frowning, the Doctor smacked the sonic screwdriver against his hand a few times. "That's not right," he said.

Donna sighed. "Great. Just great."

"Wait." Narriss held up a hand, ghostly pale in the wan light. He walked all the way to the end of the path and felt along the wall. To Donna's surprise, a great piece of it swung inwards; it was not solid stone after all, but another dark wooden door, disguised by the shadows. Light poured out of the gap, and Narriss opened it further to reveal a new room.

"I have excellent night vision," he explained, as she came up behind him and peered into the chamber.

Compared to the damp tunnels they'd been wandering through, this place was practically a spa. It was smaller than the entrance hall and less opulent, a simple circular room with a domed roof and rafters stretching from the central point like the spokes of a wheel. More torches ( _These guys are really committed to the old-timey feel, aren't they?_ Donna thought to herself) lined the walls, making the place a good deal brighter than the maze itself, and a fire pit served as the centrepiece of the room. Another pair of doors lay exactly opposite them.

They all filed into the room, visibly relaxing as the warmth of the torches surrounded them—all except the Doctor, who began pacing around restlessly. With a last glance at the maze behind them, he closed the doors they'd entered through and slid the lock in place.

"What's got you so jumpy?" asked Donna.

He wrinkled his nose. "Safe to say, if this room is right on the path to the centre of the maze, someone really wanted us to pass through."

With annoyance, she realized he was probably right. That couldn't be a coincidence, and it probably wasn't good. But at that moment, she only cared that they had a warm, dry place to rest for a while.

Hssii'shi gave a loud chirp. "Doctor! Everyone, look!"

He was kneeling by a wooden chest, sat against the wall. Donna hurried over to see what he was so excited about, when he pulled out a small container full of bugs. She stopped short, pulling a face, but the Doctor was unfazed. He knelt next to the avian and rummaged through the chest himself.

"It's food," he said, evidently surprised, holding up a packet of dried meat. "There's something for all of us here."

Tossing the packet to Donna, he helped Hssii'shi unpack the rest. There was everything from raw red meat to little grey discs—which the Doctor said were nutrient supplements—as well as two portable containers full of water. Once they had worked out what was meant for whom, even the Doctor tolerated a quick break from his activities to eat.

Donna picked out a piece of jerky—some sort of bird, she figured, trying to hide it from Hssii'shi—and a handful of something that tasted like sweet carrots but looked like particularly large peas. She was too hungry to even care about Hssii'shi's bugs or Narriss's raw meat. Dakro, she noticed with surprise, seemed only to be eating the vegetables provided. The Doctor appeared to be happy with the grey discs, but he occasionally stole something out of Donna's portion.

"So," she said, reaching for the water, "what exactly is all of this?"

Dakro stopped, just about to take a bite of something red and leafy. "It's not poisoned, is it?"

Spluttering, Hssii'shi dropped his dish.

"No, it's just food," said the Doctor. He twiddled the sonic between his fingers. "Scanned it all for the usual stuff."

"I would guess," hummed Narriss, "that we are intended to die by the Beast's claw, which cannot happen if we starve first."

"Maybe they want us to be able to run," Dakro suggested. "Get a a show out of it."

The pale alien shot her a sour look that Donna could not claim to understand, and went back to eating in silence. She looked to the Doctor, eyebrow raised in question; he returned her gaze and shook his head ever so slightly—later, he would explain.

Hssii'shi crunched loudly on a beetle. "We… aren't going to be eaten." he said hesitantly. "Are we?"

"Not if I can help it," the Doctor said, now serious.

It was strange—until then, Donna hadn't really registered the danger. She supposed, now that she thought about it, no one would go through all this effort just to let them go without a fight. Someone, for some reason, wanted them dead, and they were at their mercy. For all she knew, the oxygen could be sucked out of these tunnels any minute; but it wouldn't, she reminded herself. It could be, but it wouldn't. If their captors had wanted to kill them quickly, they would have done it while they were all unconscious. They might be in for a fight, but for now it seemed that it was to be on more or less equal footing, especially with the Doctor on their side.

"Tell me, Doctor, what makes you think you _can_ help it?" asked Dakro after a moment of silence. She was not confrontational, at least not outwardly, merely curious.

He ran a hand through his spiky hair. "Well, I've got quite a bit of experience. I'm usually pretty good at not dying. It's my specialty." With a nod at Donna, he added, "Tell her."

She shrugged at the horned alien. "He's right, we do it a lot."

Dakro looked like she wanted to keep questioning him, but she did not. "I suppose, if I'm allowed to remain anonymous, then so are you."

He regarded her for a moment, and Donna saw in his eyes a flicker of… well, something. "Good," he said, impassive.

"But that does not mean, Doctor," she continued, brandishing a vegetable in his direction, "that I trust you. I will follow your direction, because I know you know what you're doing. But I don't trust you." She cast a shadowed glance at the others, a glance that lingered just a little too long on Donna. "And neither should any of you, for that matter."

Anger swelled in Donna's chest; who did she think she was, talking like that? She didn't know anything. _Don't antagonize her_ , the Doctor had said, well, what was she supposed to do? The thorny alien seemed dead-set on antagonizing everyone else.

The Doctor laid a hand on her arm, warning her not to talk back before she even opened her mouth. "If you like," he said mildly, but his eyes were dark and his gaze sharp. Donna didn't figure he trusted her any more than she did him. But… why? Their conflict made no sense to her, and now that she'd thought about it for a moment she realized that Dakro had no reason to distrust the Doctor, at least not one she could figure out. He hadn't even done anything particularly annoying yet.

"You know what, though?" said the Doctor, changing the topic as if he'd already forgotten the last. He motioned between him and Donna. "We were on the TARDIS before getting kidnapped. Hssii'shi, you took a transport to the Core. Dakro was on her own ship, Narriss had just left a spaceport. If I'm right, that woman in the entrance hall must've worked on some sort of scientific vessel, judging by her uniform."

"So we were all taken from ships," Donna finished. "What does that mean?"

"Well, it could mean a lot of things. Could mean we've been kidnapped by space pirates. Could mean they just wanted some variety in their captives." He shrugged. "Could mean we're not on a planet at all, and we're being held on some sort of ship. Probably not though, doesn't feel like a ship."

"What, exactly, does a ship feel like?" Narriss wondered.

"Depends on the ship, of course."

Standing abruptly, apparently tired of the interrogation, he circled the room and double-checked the locks on both doors. "Everyone should get some rest. It's…" he checked his watch (and Donna realized she'd never seen him wear a watch before), "been about two hours since we woke up in that hall. We'll stay here for four, then get going."

"Should someone keep watch?" asked Dakro.

"I'll do it," the Doctor said. "I don't need the sleep."

Narriss looked disappointed. "Only four hours?"

"I'm afraid so. For now, at least. We can't afford to stay in one place too long." Assured that the doors were as secure as they would get, the Doctor sat down and took another piece of Donna's food.

"Why not?" Donna asked. "You think we're being followed already?"

He looked to her, eyes glinting with concealed excitement. "Oh, I'm sure of it."


	3. Chapter 3

Donna woke abruptly, for the second time in the last day, lying on the stone floor, the Doctor's jacket folded under her head. Someone was being much too loud for their own good, and her first impulse was to bury her head under a pillow and go back to sleep. But the noise was only increasing in volume, and she sat bolt upright, fully intending to have a word with whomever was making it.

The noise was Hssii'shi; the birdlike alien was screeching and running around the room, feathered tail whipping behind him and arms flapping uselessly. She would have shouted at him to shut it, but it quickly became apparent that he was not her biggest problem at the moment, as a resounding crash sounded through the chamber. The wooden doors, the ones they'd entered through, shuddered as something hit them again, rattling the latch that held them in place—a rather flimsy latch, now that Donna thought about it. A scraping, scratching noise followed, as whatever was out there tried valiantly to get inside.

She gave a start as a hand grasped her arm.

"We need to go, now," urged the Doctor, having appeared at her side, pulling her to her feet before she had any chance to process the situation.

"What? What's going on?" she demanded. She thought to grab his jacket as she staggered upright.

He sprinted across the chamber and started rooting through the chest of food, grabbing whatever he could carry in his arms. Dakro was dragging Hssii'shi out of the door that led forward into the maze, and as Donna stared at the chaos around her the red alien caught her eye and waved her on.

Another bang sounded against the door, accompanied by an awful splintering, startling her into motion. She ran out the other side of the chamber, the Doctor right behind her, and Dakro heaved the doors shut behind them. Hssii'shi stood in the hallway, silent now and looking ready to bolt at any moment, and Narriss was pressed against the wall behind him.

"Go, go!" the Doctor yelled, grabbing Donna's hand and dragging her behind him as he raced down the corridor.

"What was that?" Donna panted, looking back to make sure nothing was chasing them.

"Don't know." He skidded to a stop at an intersection, pulled out his sonic screwdriver, turned until it beeped, and then ran the opposite way. Checking that the others were following, he took the next turn and then the next, until they ended up at a dead end, all breathing hard.

Dakro leaned her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. "What have you done?" she hissed. "Now we're trapped."

"Well, sure, but if that thing manages to follow us it will be too. S'pose we'll be trapped with it, though," he muttered.

Donna smacked him in the arm. "Are we going to be eaten?" she demanded.

"No, no. Who says it even wants to eat us?"

There was a great crash. The Doctor stiffened, and motioned for everyone to move back towards the end of the tunnel. Donna could barely see, her eyes still used to the bright room, but she could hear footsteps. Great, thudding footsteps, echoing so it was hard to tell how far away they were. Then, as they waited in anxious silence, the footsteps paused, and the creature let out a low growl.

Heart racing, she listened for the smallest noise. She heard the creature start walking again, breathing just as hard as they were—except the Doctor, who never seemed to tire—and she heard it get quieter as it moved away. She breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

"It didn't find us," Narriss whispered, sounding shocked. Donna, now adjusted to the lower light, saw that his eyes were wide and panicked. She was surprised; she wouldn't have pegged him as one to be easily startled.

"Was that the Beast?" breathed Dakro.

"I don't know," replied the Doctor. His eyes found Donna; that wild look crept over his features, and gave her a grin. "Only one way to find out."

Before Donna could protest, he was tip-toeing around the corner and out of sight. It was quiet for a long moment as she held her breath, waiting to hear more growling or screaming. Instead, she heard laughter.

"Donna!" the Doctor called. "Come here, it's perfectly safe!" And he laughed again.

A bit confused, she hurried down the paths to find him, the other two following behind. The Doctor was crouched behind a mass of fur—which, surprisingly, was not trying to eat him—cooing and talking to the creature underneath.

"Aw, aren't you a good girl!" he praised, scratching the animal's belly as it rolled onto its back for him. Turning to the onlookers, he said, "It's an Essian fox. Bit enthusiastic, but completely harmless. Herbivore, in fact. I think this little guy was just after the food."

"Little?" Donna questioned. Upon noticing the others, the creature had scrambled to its feet; it didn't like a fox so much as a red-furred horse, standing almost as tall as a human, with long legs and clawed paws. It had a lean, greyhound-like body, a tapered snout ending in a black button nose, and comically large ears. Its beady eyes flicked between them and the Doctor before, realizing it wouldn't be getting any food, it tossed its head and went trotting off into the maze.

"What is it doing in here?" Narriss said, voice hissing slightly through his needle-like teeth.

"It's an ecosystem," Dakro murmured. As everyone turned to her, she continued, eyes gleaming. "This Beast needs food, doesn't it? In between sacrifices, I mean. I bet there's a whole food chain in here."

The Doctor looked at her with surprise. "Very good," he remarked. "I think you're right."

Donna raised an eyebrow. "So it wasn't trying to kill us. You woke me up for this?"

"Yeah, well, it was probably time to be going anyway," the Doctor said, rubbing the back of his neck.

Dakro, frowning, wandered away from the group and knelt to tie her boots, forgotten in the rush to escape the chamber. Hssii'shi fluffed his feathers and shook his head, eyes wide from the shock of almost being eaten first thing in the morning—or was it night? There was really no way to tell, enclosed as they were.

The Doctor, sonic screwdriver held in his mouth, was rifling through his pockets for the leftovers he'd grabbed. "Hold this," he mumbled, shoving food packets into Donna's arms.

She almost dropped the container of beetles as he handed it to her, passing it off as quickly as she could to Hssii'shi. "Doctor," she said, struggling to hold everything, "how long were we asleep?"

"Oh, about three hours." He snuck a piece of cured meat from the final package before giving that to Donna as well.

Wincing, she gave an uncomfortably squishy pack of raw meat to Narriss. "What time is it here, then?"

He shrugged, bit off a large chunk of jerky, and turned to leave. "I'll get the rest," he called back.

Donna huffed. "Thought you were s'posed to be a Time Lord," she yelled.

Dakro lifted her head, taking notice of this. She stood and wandered back towards Donna.

"Strange one, he is," she remarked.

Donna nodded in emphatic agreement.

"Time Lord, huh?" Dakro stared at his retreating back, a strange mixture of curiosity and foreboding on her face.

She glanced at the horned alien, brows twitching into a frown. "Yeah. Why?"

Shrugging, she didn't speak for a moment, until the Doctor rounded the corner and disappeared from view. Then, "How much do you really know about him?" she asked.

Her tone could have tricked anyone into thinking she was simply curious, but the question was so odd that Donna was forced to take notice.

"What d'you mean?" Her voice crept up in volume. "What exactly are you accusing him of? And what has he ever done to you? He hasn't even licked anything yet, and you've done nothing but argue with him!"

"I'm not accusing him of anything," Dakro said easily, throwing her a cold look. "Doesn't mean I'm particularly excited to be trapped in a deadly maze with him."

Donna gave a sharp laugh. "Shows what you know, then."

Dakro raised an eyebrow, but made no further comment, instead smoothing over her expression and focusing on fixing her jacket. Hssii'shi edged away from them, the feathers on his neck and chest ruffling with discomfort.

When the Doctor came back a minute later, stowing the unopened food packets into various pockets that definitely should not have been capable of holding so much, he was oblivious to the fact that anything had happened at all.

"Right!" he said, much too cheerfully for Donna on three hours of sleep. "Shall we be off?"

Donna sighed. "Fine."

Led by the Doctor, the group made their way back to the first junction they'd passed when running from the fox. Down the corridor, splintered chunks of the door's wooden latch lay scattered across the stone; the fox must be pretty strong for an herbivore, and Donna wondered what sort of planet they were on that an animal would evolve in such a way. The Doctor, sonic in hand, spun around a few times before pointing them in the opposite direction from which they'd come, and he took off at a brisk walk.

One long corridor and two turns later, they were face to face with a dead end.

Narriss walked right up to the wall, and felt along it with his long, spindly fingers for a hidden door or a switch. "Well," he said, having given up, "that can't be a good sign."

The Doctor was fiddling with his sonic, hitting it against his hand. "No, no, no!" he hissed, pacing restlessly from one side of the hall to the other.

"Doctor, what is it?" asked Donna, sure she was missing what was so bad about making a wrong turn.

"The maze!" he exclaimed. "Oh, they are good. The schematics I got off that surveillance device aren't working anymore."

"What do you mean, 'not working'? Were they altered? Corrupted?" Dakro questioned.

"Oh no, the map is exactly the same as it was yesterday." His eyes scanned the walls and ceiling, brows furrowed in frustration. "The maze has changed."

Donna blinked. "You mean it… rearranged itself? Overnight?"

"I would guess someone decided to rearrange it. Maybe they saw me take the map, wanted to make things a bit trickier for us. Maybe it changes every time we take a rest."

"But shouldn't we have heard it?" Donna recalled waking up in the stone pit. "When those platforms took us up to the hall it was deafening. How could we have missed all those walls moving around?"

"Are they holograms?" asked Dakro. "Hard-light?"

"No, it's all real. Scanned it myself," the Doctor murmured, hand pressed to the wall. Then he slapped his forehead and whirled to face Donna, startling them all. "It's the room! It must be contained in some sort of soundproofing field." He frowned again. "That is some serious technology. That– that should not exist around here, not because the Essians—the inhabitants of the Nebula area, I mean, not the species—don't have the technology, they just never bothered. The systems around here have always been a bit backwater, they don't really go for that sort of thing, more of a home-grown family-run black market sort of economy–"

"Doctor!" Donna interrupted his rambling. "How do we know where to go now?"

He ran his fingers through his hair, expression drawn. "I'm not sure, Donna."

"Could you not catch another camera?" Narriss questioned.

"Haven't seen any since the last one. Besides, it'll just change again as soon as we come to another safe room." He grimaced. "Looks like we'll have to do it the old-fashioned way."

Donna did not like that idea. "What, stumble around until we maybe find the right path?"

The Doctor gave an apologetic smile. "Yup."

* * *

The three bounty hunters emerged from their transport at the end of a long underground access tunnel to find themselves in the doorway of a bare circular room. This was the starting gate—or one of them, at least, as Tarik claimed—located right underneath the middle of the Maze. This part of Tarik's property was not like the mansion; it was all rough stone bricks and crude torches, dark and damp and cold. Kai supposed this was what the rest of the Maze would be like, but she really didn't mind. Luxury was overrated.

Tarik herded them all into the centre of the room, inside a ring of darker stone. "Alright," he began, hands clasped behind his back, walking slowly back and forth in front of them. "I trust that none of you read the guidelines provided along with your invitations?"

 _Pretentious,_ Kai thought, expression completely neutral as she watched him pace.

"If you will recall, this is an exercise, but it is also a competition. Points will be awarded for body count, the cleanliness of the kill…" He shot a glance at Priak, and the Hazrian flicked his tongue between his lips. "And your ability to complete the challenges provided in the most efficient way possible. The hunter with the highest total will be awarded a prize of ten million credits, as well as the credentials that come with succeeding in this event.

"You will remain in the Maze until all the targets have been eliminated. The device I have provided to you is a homing beacon; if you activate it, you will automatically be removed from the competition and emergency services will be summoned to your location. Once the event is complete, it will project a holographic map showing you to the nearest exit, and you will proceed directly to the control room."

He stopped his pacing and turned to face them directly. "Under no circumstances may you leave the Maze or have any outside contact without forfeiting your place in the competition. I will remind you that this is the only structure on this half of the planet. If any sort of unauthorized signal is transmitted to or from the Maze, it will be detected and traced with ease. You may not bring anything but your assorted weapons and limited first aid; there are caches of food and water placed throughout the Maze. Other than that, anything goes."

"Seems like there are a lot of things that don't go," remarked Kai.

Tarik gave her a tight-lipped smile, which she thought made him look a bit like Priak if Priak's face was all flat and pale. _(I mean, he lives in a place that gets constant sunlight,_ she thought _. How much time does he spend underground?)_

"Mind the security cameras," he murmured, before stepping back from the dais and producing an activator from somewhere within his coatee. "Best of luck."

He typed a command, and the floor lurched beneath their feet. The circular stone in the middle of the room began to rise with a loud grating; Kai reached to the side of her helmet and adjusted the ambient noise levels to block it out. They rose up through a hole in the ceiling, leaving Tarik behind in the chamber, and the dais ground to a halt.

They were in a massive stone cavern, several hundred meters wide and long, resembling a cave more than any artificial construction. Veins of some sort of golden ore snaked across the roof, glittering in the light of a number of torches bolted to the wall. Kai recalled Tarik's lengthy explanation of the natural resources on Frontier Seven; the bright half was rich in mineral deposits, he'd said, but the heat and the terrain, as well as the fact that the inhabitants of the planet were largely uninterested in connecting to the wider galaxy, meant that no one had attempted to extract them. And the wealthy black marketeer himself had little interest in such mundane ventures.

The space was filled with towering stone brick walls, arced to fit the circular chamber. Walking in any direction would eventually lead to the enclosed corridors, stacked in three levels with the uppermost open to the air and the sun. She had watched this event live before—and others would be eagerly watching this time, which was why outside communications were forbidden—and she knew the general layout of the Maze. It would be difficult to navigate, but not impossible. Especially with the extra little bit of tech she might possibly have nicked from Tarik's control room.

"What now?" Priak hissed, turning in one spot to get a look at the whole of the cavern.

"We go our separate ways," said Kai. She slipped off her pack and knelt on the rough ground, pulling out a light blaster pistol, which she put in her hip holster, and a utility knife, which she strapped to her calf. The pack also contained her usual equipment—a collapsible rifle, a dart gun, and a good amount of survival gear—but she was aware that she likely wouldn't need it. This contest would not be like the kind of job she usually took.

Dev seemed confused, glancing around with his nose twitching as he took in the sights and smells of the Maze. "I didn't think there was a real beast in here," he grunted, ears flattened against his head. "Thought Tarik made it up."

"You smell something?" Kai scanned the room again, watching the shadows for any sign of movement.

"Lots of things. There are lots of different creatures in here."

Making a sort of low, clicking growl in the back of his throat, Priak drew his own blaster. "Are they obstacles? Or are they food?"

Kai snorted. "Well, not all of us eat raw meat. I'd guess they're meant to get in our way. Maybe the targets' too."

"How hard can animals be to deal with?" said Dev.

"Depends on the animal. Frontier Seven has some nasty native wildlife," she pointed out.

"Either way, it is pointless to sit and wait for it to find us," Priak asserted. He hefted his rifle, teeth bared in an approximation of a grin. "I'm going to get my body count."

Picking a direction seemingly at random, the Hazrian stalked off between the stone barriers. Dev left a moment later, choosing the corridor exactly opposite.

As soon as they were gone, Kai couldn't resist laughing to herself. She didn't claim to have a particularly good sense of direction, but at least she'd had the common sense to keep track of which way she was oriented. The entrance hall where the targets would be waking up was located at the end of the Maze closest to Tarik's mansion, which lay conveniently along the access tunnel that they had used to get here, and which Kai had been facing as they were lifted into the Maze. Drawing her blaster, just in case, she left the empty dais and entered the first gap in the walls to her left.

She blinked a few times as she walked into the corridor, waiting for her eyes to adjust; the walls went right to the top of the cavern, tall enough that most of the torchlight was blocked out, though there were openings leading to precarious ledges all around the room. (The upper floors got very convoluted near the centre, she knew.) These paths were narrow, only a few meters wide, made so that a whole tangle of them could fit inside the central cavern: a last-ditch attempt at fending off anyone who got that far. Of course, it didn't matter much whether they got to the centre. There was nothing there except, perhaps, a bit of extra food or supplies, or sometimes a weapon. That happened some years.

From there on out, Kai had no way of knowing whether she and the targets would end up meeting, but at least she was going in the general right direction. She would just have to walk until she encountered them. There were clues, if one knew what they were looking for, to reveal where they had been; she was rather good at tracking. She only hoped they were still in one group by the time she got to them.

Slipping a hand into a pocket inside her jacket, she felt around for the small metal disc she'd snuck in, breathing a sigh of relief when she found it safe and sound. Tarik was watching, so she couldn't use it yet—he was all for a bit of drama in the Trial, but he wouldn't allow this—but soon enough he would be more than a little occupied, and she could get on with her own mission.

Just as soon as she got to the third floor.

* * *

Tarik leaned back in his chair, a crooked grin spreading across his face. With a flex of his fingers he pulled a lever on the wall next to his desk, sealing and deadlocking all entrances to the Maze. The screens in front of him flickered to life, displaying a number of views of the hunters standing in the central cavern where he'd left them. This was his favourite part; now, all he had to do was sit back, watch the video feeds, and wreak chaos on hunters and targets alike.

He'd planned the usual stuff—deadly animals and traps and shifting walls and all that—and he was looking forward to thinking up something new as the event wore on, but he didn't think any of that would beat the surprise he'd already set up. There was something he had not told the hunters when they'd talked on the terrace, a twist to surpass anything he'd orchestrated before. He wouldn't be surprised if not all of the hunters made it out of this one alive. It was quite brilliant, in his humble opinion, much better than the Pallori and its superstitions.

As far as the hunters knew, he had captured two humans for the event. In fact, he had stumbled across one human, and one Time Lord.

Having left Earth at a young age and moved as close to the Core Worlds as humans had yet been able to reach, he had grown up hearing myths about the mighty race of time travellers who once walked the universe. Scattered, incomplete tales, nothing more; no one seemed to know the full story any longer. But the Core Worlds were home to the oldest species in the galaxy, and they all knew the story of one Time Lord in particular, the very last Time Lord in existence. As such, the minute Tarik realized who he had the privilege of hosting, he had intercepted four other ships travelling to or from the Core in the hopes there would be someone who would recognize the alien for what he was.

Suffice to say, he had succeeded far beyond what he could have hoped for.

Yes, he was excited. This year's competition would propel him and his participants into infamy. For it could conclude in only one of two ways: either the hunters would all be killed and the targets released…

Or the Doctor would finally meet his end.


	4. Chapter 4

It had been… well, Donna wasn't sure how long it had been since they'd started walking again. All she knew was that it was cold, and she wanted desperately to go back to sleep. The others seemed to be in a similar state, dragging their feet more and more as they walked onwards. None of them had bothered asking the Doctor for the time; it felt like eternity regardless. In fact, the Doctor was the only one of the group who still had any energy in him, though he was clearly despondent over the loss of the map.

Ever-prepared—ever the hoarder, as Donna could affirm—he had managed to find a large packet of ball bearings in his pocket, and was dropping one before every turn they reached to indicate what direction they'd come from. More than once, they had hit a dead end and were forced to double back and choose a different path, as the Doctor meticulously picked up his ball bearings again. If she didn't know better, she'd say he was being quite thorough and responsible. But she did, and so she was forced to assume he just liked ball bearings.

Meanwhile, the conversation had grown monotonous. Dakro and Hssii'shi, who Donna had learned was quite the adventurer, at least for a Calidriss, were speculating about what planet they could be on. Occasionally, the Doctor intervened to say that the gravity was all wrong, or the air didn't taste right, but he had no suggestions of his own to provide. Narriss had been quiet the whole time, alternately fidgeting with the hem of his robes and turning a pendant he'd been wearing around his neck in his hands. Donna had a hard time figuring out whether he was tired, or nervous, or just a withdrawn person, and at that moment she couldn't bring herself to care. She just wanted to sleep.

Then, the Doctor noticed something strange, and she got the feeling they wouldn't be resting any time soon.

"The patterns in the stone are different," he murmured, squinting closely at a row of three dark bricks in the lighter-coloured wall. The pattern continued in a single streak, three dark to three light, all down the hallway. Except, when Donna turned in the intersection where the Doctor had stopped them, she saw that he was right: up and down their hall, the pattern went three and three. But when she turned ninety degrees to look at the other hall, it was two and two.

"Why the hell were you counting bricks?" Donna asked, exasperated.

"Gotta pass the time somehow." He rounded on her abruptly, excited enough for the both of them. "That is no accident. First mistake!" he shouted at the ceiling, pointing a finger in the air. "Never get bored around me!"

"What are you talking about?" demanded Dakro.

"It's a clue!" he exclaimed. "A hint, a sign, _molto bene_! Oh, I was right, they're having us on. This has all been planned, down to the letter. Or, brick." He wrinkled his nose. "Well, now I feel a bit behind."

"You're not suggesting," said Narriss, in that slow, droning voice of his, "that this is all some… some ruse? A fake?"

"By all my best instincts: yes, yes it is."

"I hate to ruin the excitement," Hssii'shi interjected, "but which path is the correct one? And what do the patterns mean?"

The Doctor shrugged, grinned, and started down the corridor with the two-brick pattern.

"He doesn't know where he's going, does he?" muttered Dakro, to no one in particular.

After a moment's hesitation, Donna went running after him, followed by Hssii'shi's clicking footsteps. "If you get us lost," she hissed, too quiet for the others to hear, "I'm gonna kill you."

"Oh, Donna," he said breezily, "I'd like to see you try."

She smacked him on the arm, but settled into a brisk walk at his side. Whatever Dakro's problem was with the Doctor, she wasn't about to give her any more leverage by arguing. No matter how juvenile he acted at times, the Doctor was more than capable of leading them out of whatever this place was supposed to be. Frustration sparking along her nerves once again, Donna pushed aside those thoughts and turned her attention back to her surroundings.

Ten minutes later, having followed the pattern through several turns, they came to another intersection; the pattern they'd been following continued straight through, interrupted by the same three-brick pattern in the other hallway, before ending in a staircase.

The Doctor advanced cautiously towards the steps, unable to see what was at the top. The torches in this hall ended several meters from the bottom of the stairs, leaving them—purposefully, Donna guessed—in ominous shadow. He took out his sonic screwdriver and pointed it up, the whirring noise sounding disproportionately loud in the stone corridor. The sound sent a shiver down her spine.

"Signs of life," he murmured. Turning back around, he added, "But there are plenty down here as well."

"A second floor? Bit weird, don't you think?" asked Donna, hanging back in the intersection with the others.

Dakro, ever the individualist, marched past the Doctor to look for herself.

"Oh… Oh, stay there, don't move," the Doctor said urgently as she approached the stairs, sonic pointed right at her.

She stopped at the base, not as quickly as she probably should have, and leaned a hand against the wall. "What is it?"

The answer came a second later in the form of a rumble like a herd of charging animals, filling the hallways and shaking the floor beneath their feet. Donna stepped back, looking around for the source as she struggled to keep her balance. Squawking wildly, Hssii'shi ran back the way they'd come—and skidded to a halt after no more than a few feet as the walls of the corridor they'd only just left began to grind towards each other. She whipped back around in time to see the Doctor through the gap between the walls, starting forward too late, before they met with a crash, and the maze went silent.

After a moment of standing there, stunned, she rushed up to the newly-appeared wall and pried at the gaps in the stone, searching for the seam. "Doctor?" she called. "Doctor! If you do not get this wall open, I swear–"

Pressing her ear to the wall, she listened for some sort of response. When she heard none, she turned around, back against the trapdoor. Hssii'shi stood, staring at her, with his feathers puffed out so that he looked like a cotton ball on two sticks; Narriss had a blank look on his face, like he wasn't sure what had just happened. On either side of them, one hallway stretched out, as if the other had never existed.

"I think," Narriss said cautiously, "we are on our own."

"No, just wait," she insisted. "The Doctor will get the door open. Pretty much the only thing he's good for, doors."

He gestured at the ground by her feet. "He wouldn't have planned on using that, would he?"

With the full, embittered knowledge of what she would find dawning on her, Donna looked to where his finger pointed. Indeed, there lay the sonic, caught in a crack between two stones.

"Idiot," she muttered, bending to pick up the little device. He must have tossed it to her when the hallway started sealing itself.

"What– what do we do now?" asked Hssii'shi, trembling like a leaf.

"We stop overreacting, is what we do," she snapped. She faced the wall, giving it her best intimidating glare. "Alright. Just point and think."

Repeating over and over in her head, _open the door_ , Donna aimed the screwdriver at the bricks and pressed the button. The end shone blue and the buzzing started up, but the walls didn't move an inch. She stopped, looked at it frustratedly, and did it again, trying to think harder this time. Still, nothing happened.

"Maybe… maybe they're deadlocked. Whatever that means," she said, recalling all the times the Doctor had made excuses for his sonic not working.

"So you can't get them open," Narriss stated.

Donna turned the glare on him.

Moving on, he asked, "What now?"

She took a deep breath. "Well… we keep walking. We'll get somewhere. Better than just sitting here."

Before she could lose her nerve, she picked a direction at random and strode off down the hall. The two aliens followed a moment later, hurrying to catch up.

Donna went to search her coat for a place to put the sonic, and realized that she was still wearing the Doctor's jacket. It hit her, then, that the only familiar thing to her in this whole mess was gone. She didn't know anything about where (or when) they were. She didn't know about this maze or what planet they might be on, or who had put them there and why, and she knew the Doctor did. She'd never even gotten to ask the Doctor about their mysterious companions; suddenly their presence at her back, as they wandered through the halls of the bizarre maze, was no comfort at all. For the first time yet, the chill she felt had nothing to do with the cold. How was she supposed to find her way out of this one?

It was almost tempting to go back, just sit by the wall and hope the Doctor found a way to open the doors. But without the sonic, Donna knew he wouldn't waste time trying. He would go onwards, get to the centre, and count on them to pull their weight. At least she was clearly the one in charge of this motley group; a smile spread across her face as she imagined the Doctor and Dakro, quarrelling over every turn. The thought made her feel a bit better.

Stowing the sonic in one of the Doctor's jacket pockets—one of a surprising number, she found—Donna searched them to see if she could find something useful. She pulled out several lengths of red string, a paper clip, a couple of the food packets (at which point she worried about whether he would have anything to eat), and his container of ball bearings before she gave up, resolving to continue leaving them in a trail in case the Doctor came across it.

It was a while before the corridor reached a bend. It went in the same direction as the closed-off hallway in which Dakro and the Doctor had been trapped, and it too ended in a darkened staircase. Donna stared at it suspiciously. She was reluctant to trigger another shift in the walls and stop them from turning around. But there was nowhere else to go, unless they walked all the way back. And it might lead the same way as the other steps.

"Well," Donna said, standing at the edge of the hall. "Should we go up?"

She knew what she thought, but she looked to Narriss and Hssii'shi for approval. They both nodded, however hesitantly.

"Right then." Taking a deep breath, she stepped bravely up to the staircase. "Let's get this over with."

* * *

The Doctor slammed his fists against the stone, breathing hard. "Damn it," he snarled, turning to lean his back against the trapdoor.

Dakro was no less angry. "Why did you do that?" she demanded, storming up to him. "That sonic probe of yours might have been our only chance!"

"Donna needs it more than I do." Pushing himself suddenly off the wall, he strode down the hall towards the staircase. "And it's a _screwdriver_."

The space was pitch black. If not for the faintest glow from the top of the stairs—and his superior Time Lord vision—it would be impossible to know forward from backward. Stepping lightly so as not to trip over the rough stone floor, the Doctor hurried down the hall and went bounding up the staircase, eager to get moving again.

Dakro hesitated for a moment, before running after him. "Wait! Aren't you going to wait for them to get the door open?"

"Ah, that thing's not opening again any time soon. All the controls for these walls are deadlocked, I scanned after they moved around the first time. The sonic doesn't do deadlocks."

She opened her mouth to ask further questions, but decided against it and pursed her lips together. Making her way more slowly up the dark staircase, she joined the Doctor, who was waiting at the top, and set off just behind him. They were in a well-lit corridor on what seemed to be an entire second floor, identical to the first but for the pattern in the walls; rather than a single line of two dark bricks in a row, there were two parallel lines of a single dark brick followed by a single light one.

"Why in the starless swamps of Nox would someone go through the effort to build this place?" Dakro wondered, looking around as they reached the first junction.

The Doctor gave her a quizzical look, completely ignoring her question. "Nox? System Alpha, Core Worlds? You're not from Nox."

Her expression immediately turned guarded. "No, I am not."

He raised an eyebrow and grinned, distinctly gleeful to have discovered something about her. "But you are from the Core Worlds, aren't you? I had guessed, you know."

"I thought we agreed," she said stiffly, "that we did not have to know each other to survive this daft maze."

With a shrug, he stuck his hands in his pockets and glanced sideways at her. "I'd say you know more about me than I do you," he pointed out.

She snorted. "At least I told you my real name."

"Oh, what is it with you lot and the names?" the Doctor groaned.

" _My_ lot? And who would that be, exactly?"

"Well, I wouldn't know. You haven't said."

"And I expect _your_ lot are all above that?"

After a moment's pause, he said, "What's it matter to you anyway? What do you know about _my lot_?"

"Enough." With that, Dakro crossed her arms and remained silent.

The Doctor gave a quiet, exasperated sigh. He had met some… difficult beings in his long lifetime, but few who were willing to argue with him over his name while under imminent threat of death. There was something about Dakro that set him on edge, and it wasn't the secrecy—though that certainly didn't fail to make him curious. She had disliked him above all the others from the moment they'd been dropped in that hall. What could have caused her to form an opinion so quickly? Well… he did have ideas. Quite a few, really. Too many to pick from, knowing him. But he'd done nothing to her, personally!

Unless he had…

No sense worrying about it now, he figured. Most people liked him better after he'd saved their lives anyway.

"So how are we getting out of here, then?" Dakro asked, somewhat grumpily. "I know you don't really think we'll find an exit at the centre. And I also know, by the way, that we probably won't get out of here alive, so you don't have to lie to me."

"Well, what makes you say that?" the Doctor said indignantly, as if the tension had never existed. "I'll have you know I'm very good at getting out of places alive."

Shooting him a sideways glance, she gave a short laugh as if this were an inside joke the Doctor was not in on. "Please. If whoever put us here is bored enough to give us hints, they've gotta be pretty confident in their ability to kill us on a whim."

He shrugged. "There's always the possibility that they could be reasoned with. But to answer your question: the centre's where Donna and the others will go. We have to meet up with them first, before we look for an exit. And I had hoped to find someone who could find an exit, if not the exit itself."

"You think there's someone else in here? As in, not Donna or Narriss or Hssii'shi?"

"Makes sense, doesn't it? Bit boring to stick us all in a maze and leave us here to wander around until we starve or get crushed by a moving wall, innit?"

"Not if those are the rules of the game."

The Doctor stopped in his tracks, suddenly struck by a half-formed idea. "Game…" he murmured to himself. Then he sprung into the air with excitement. " _Game!_ " he cried, and slapped his forehead, staring frenziedly at Dakro. "Oh, it's so obvious!"

"What? What is?" she demanded, looking at him as if he might have gone mad.

"It _is_ a game," he hissed. "It's Seven's Trial!"

"Seven what?"

"Seven's Trial. It's a… a hunting contest." His elation at having figured it out faded quickly, replaced by a surge of anger, burning in his chest and tightening his throat. "They capture sentient beings and lock them up. Sometimes they make up some narrative to terrify them even more as they're tracked down and killed for sport." Running his hands through his hair, he looked around as if seeing the corridor anew, eyes dark, lip curled in a snarl. "It's meant as a chance for bounty hunters to show off their expertise. And win a lot of money while they're at it. Highest body count wins. That's what we are: prey."

Dakro had taken a step back from him, for once dropping the illusion of control. Seeing the alarm in her eyes, the Doctor dropped his hands to his sides and took a deep breath, prepared to give her his assurance that they would make it out alive. He shouldn't have worried.

"Well, a Beast is one thing, but I'm not about to be killed by some bounty hunter for a competition," she growled, eyes flashing. He felt an odd little twinge of pride.

Then she frowned. "Wait. Who's Seven, then?"

"It's not a person. It's a planet. Frontier Seven, where the tournament is held. This does explain one thing, though, now that I think of it," he said. "I had wondered how exactly they got Donna and me while we were on a near-invincible ship. I expect we volunteered."

"Volunteered?" Dakro repeated, eyebrow raised. "To be hunted down and killed?"

"Happens more than you'd think," he admitted. Then he drew in a sharp breath. "Now we really do have to find the others, don't we?"

But Dakro's attention had slipped elsewhere. She pointed down the hallway. "Speaking of prey…"

The Doctor turned. Quite a ways down the hall, a dark pool had spread across the stone. Cautiously, he walked over to get a closer look.

It was blood. As he approached, Dakro following close behind, the biting smell of iron hit him, and he scrunched up his nose. There were red droplets spattered across the wall and the whole width of the corridor; a trail of still-wet smears led away and around a corner, out of sight. Crouching down, careful not to get any on his trainers, the Doctor dipped the tip of his index finger into the pool of blood and smeared it around with his thumb, before touching it to the tip of his tongue and smacking his lips loudly, a look of disgust on his face.

"Why would you put that in your mouth?" Dakro exclaimed, horrified.

"It's not humanoid," he decided, standing. He licked his sleeve to get the taste off, and wiped his fingers on his trousers.

"What is it from, then?"

Raising an eyebrow, he put a finger to his lips to tell her to stay silent, and crept towards the bend. He poked his head around the corner, pulled back, and when nothing came after him he stepped out into the open.

"It's… some sort of animal." He grimaced. It had hooves, he could tell that much, but its bloodied carcass had clearly fed something well; the animal had been picked at to the point it was unrecognizable. Red footprints—those of a tall, three-clawed biped, he noted—led away from the kill, but the blood had dried up before they got far. Whatever had done it was long gone.

Dakro covered her nose with the sleeve of her jacket, looking vaguely ill. "Found our first predator, then?"

"Seems so." Skirting around the mess, the Doctor continued off down the hall.

"Should we really be going the same direction as it?" she called.

"What better way to find it?" he replied cheerfully.

She sighed loudly, and stalked after him. "If we get eaten, it's your fault."

"Oh, don't worry," he declared, "I know!"


	5. Chapter 5

With a final, mighty crash, the corridor sealed itself, and Donna found herself in complete darkness. There was not a single source of light anywhere in the space; she couldn't even see her own hand in front of her eyes.

Hssii'shi was quickly dissolving into nervous chirps, so Donna felt around in the Doctor's jacket pocket for the sonic screwdriver and flicked it on. The soft blue glow fell upon his bony face, sparse feathers sticking up all over. Narriss stood beside him, zombie-like in the cold light as he squinted into the black hallway.

He raised a spindly arm and pointed to her left. "The stairs are that way," he murmured, voice echoing off the stone.

Donna looked, but she couldn't see a thing. "Tell you what, why don't you go first?" she suggested, holding the sonic ahead of her like a torch.

Narriss made a little noise of agreement, and moved away silently. Checking to make sure Hssii'shi was coming, she followed him close behind, careful not to trip on the uneven ground. Her foot hit the bottom step just before she saw it, and she grabbed the wall to keep from falling over.

"Your species has terrible night vision," remarked Hssii'shi, offering her a four-taloned hand.

"Thanks," she grumbled, but accepted his help and made her way up the stairs.

"There aren't many humans around here, you know." He clicked his beak a few times, and she got the feeling it indicated interest. "Where are you from again?"

"Just Earth. Where else?" she asked, before realizing it wasn't the wisest thing to say.

"Oh. I assumed you must have been from the colonies on Ventos."

"Hm. And where's that, then?"

He gave her a look of mild surprise. "Arctis Sector? You don't know where your own planets are?"

"Well, they aren't mine," she protested.

"If you are from Earth, how did you get out to the Nebula?" Narriss inquired.

"Knowing the Doctor, he probably got us kidnapped or something."

Hssii'shi puffed out a breath. "Strange man."

"You're telling me," she scoffed.

They reached the top of the stairs, by which point Donna's legs were aching. She was almost certain the Doctor's staircase had not been so long and steep, and she felt a twinge of resentment.

Narriss continued forwards, apparently able to see exactly where he was going, and she hurried on before she lost sight of him. In the dim light of the sonic, she caught a quick glimpse of a wooden handle before he wrapped his hands around it and pulled.

Donna stumbled back, shielding her eyes with her free hand. Narriss hissed in pain and hid his face in the sleeves of his robes, and Hssii'shi shrilled in alarm. A rush of dry, burning hot air blew inside as she blinked against the sudden glare. This couldn't be torchlight, she realized. The door led outside.

Lowering her arm as her eyes adjusted to the brightness, Donna tucked away the sonic and stepped slowly through the doors. The heat felt like a fleece blanket had been thrown over her head, and she let out a whistle, looking upwards using her hand as a visor. They were still in the maze, that much was clear; soaring stone walls towered above her, running in both directions until they came to a turn, but there was no ceiling above them. The sun bore down on her out of a cloudless pale blue sky, brighter and hotter than her Sun on even the worst of days, and she instantly regretted letting the Doctor hold onto their water supply.

"Wait!" Hssii'shi cried.

"It's alright," she said, "it's just the sun."

The aliens gave her a strange look.

"But it's burning," said Narriss, as if she were missing something obvious.

"Yeah, well, they tend to do that." But she stepped back into the shade anyway. "Is this some weird alien thing? What, are you two like vampires, can't touch the sun or you'll… I don't know, explode?"

"What– No," Hssii'shi said. "But that seems a bit warm for us. Is Earth really that hot?"

"Not where I'm from. In… I don't know, Australia, maybe."

They exchanged a glance, an even mixture of curiosity and confusion.

"I have heard stories about the adaptability of their species," remarked Narriss.

Hssii'shi nodded. "I always thought they were mad for settling Arnosi. Maybe–"

"Oi!" Donna snapped, gesturing to herself with both pointer fingers. "Right here!"

Hssii'shi's feathers rippled in embarrassment. "Sorry. We meant, the climates on our planets are both cool and stable. We aren't used to such extremes of weather."

"Alright, don't get your tail in a twist." She thought for a moment. "We can't go backwards now. We'll just have to find another way inside as soon as we can. There's gotta be water or shade somewhere on this floor. Just… don't die, I guess."

"We will try our best," Narriss said smoothly. He stepped gingerly through the doors, wincing a bit as his bare feet touched the hot stone.

Hssii'shi followed, keeping the sun out of his large, soft eyes with the down on his arms. In the light, Donna could properly see his unique colouring; his sleek brown feathers were streaked through with auburn and gold, and as he stood up straight she noticed that the tufts lining his breastbone were not black as she'd thought, but a dark, iridescent blue that shimmered in the sun's glare.

He gave a frustrated sigh. "I never thought I'd say it, but I would rather be underground."

"Without a doubt," Narriss agreed wholeheartedly.

As they walked, attempting to stay in the same general direction as they'd been travelling on the first floor, Donna quickly found herself on their side. The sun was nice after the cool dampness of the lower floor, for the first few minutes, but soon she had removed both the Doctor's suit jacket and her own overcoat and now carried them slung over her arm. Sweat beaded on her forehead; she wished desperately she had some water. But even if she had, she couldn't have taken it. Within half an hour, Narriss was barely keeping himself upright, using the walls as a crutch as they made their way through the maze at a snail's pace. It was clear that the pale alien was indeed unsuited to hot weather, and Donna wasn't sure how much longer he could last.

It was an immense relief when they came across a door, set in a slanted slab of rock like the entrance to a cellar.

Struggling to support Narriss's tall, lanky form, Donna and Hssii'shi worked their way down a set of stairs into a small underground chamber, dark and blissfully cool. Donna, already feeling much better, helped Narriss sit down against one wall and hurried back up to shut the doors. She considered latching them behind her, but decided that she couldn't risk blocking the Doctor's path, should he happen across the route.

When she came back, Hssii'shi was drinking deeply from a fresh container of water, his beak barely able to fit through the opening. Narriss had already had his fill. As she approached he took one final swallow, clicked his beak in satisfaction, and offered the bottle to Donna.

She accepted gratefully, barely sparing a thought for whatever weird alien bacteria he might have on him.

Hssii'shi gestured to the wall at her back. "Another chest," he panted, taking in lungfuls of the chilly air.

Donna sealed the container again, cautious to save plenty for later. Hssii'shi had already torn through the contents of the wooden box, packages of food and nutritional supplements scattered across the floor. There were two more canteens as well; at least, it appeared, someone was unwilling to let them die of heat exhaustion just yet.

Setting down the water, Donna slumped to the floor across from the aliens and crossed her legs, letting the coolness of the stone seep into her skin. She hoped the Doctor had some miracle cure for sunburn tucked away in his pockets, because she would need it.

Narriss seemed to be feeling a little bit better as well. The red tinge on his cheeks was fading, his face returning to its usual sallow tone. His loose, white robes seemed to have both kept his body temperature to a survivable level and given him the precursor to a nasty sunburn on his exposed neck and head. He leaned against the wall as if he had no energy left in him, chest rising and falling weakly, eyes half closed. Clearly, he was in no shape to go on. Donna didn't think her plan was going to work.

"Well," said Hssii'shi, dejected, "I suppose this is the end."

Donna gave him a funny look. "What're you on about?" she laughed.

"We can't go on now." He shrugged. "What is there left to do?"

"We're not dead yet," she said mildly. "C'mon, you can't give up so easy."

"Why not?" Terror crept into his tone, his voice growing higher and squeaker. "You can't still believe we'll make it out of here alive! We're stuck in a hole. We only have so much food. There may or may not be a Beast about to eat us. Even the sun is trying to kill us! We don't stand a chance!"

"Alright, take it easy." Donna sat forward, elbows resting on her knees, and took a deep breath. "First, we can just wait 'til night time. Then we'll get as far as we can before the sun comes up, and hopefully we find more food and water somewhere. We can lock the doors until it's time to go, and that'll give us time to get away if this supposed Beast shows up. And then all we have to do is find the centre of the maze."

"Simple," Narriss muttered sarcastically, without looking up.

"Well, it's all we've got," Donna retorted. "'Cause I, for one, am not dying in an overgrown Perplexus!"

Hssii'shi clearly did not know what she was talking about, but laughed weakly anyways.

She smiled. "There, see? It's not as bad as it seems."

He huffed out a whistling breath. "Maybe. But my instincts are telling me that we are in very grave danger."

"That happens a lot, around the Doctor." Donna paused, and decided he could use a change of subject. "Where'd he say we were, the Essak Nebula?"

Hssii'shi nodded.

"Where is that?"

After thinking for a moment, he said, "Sector Delta. It's closer to the centre of the galaxy than the edge, and it's near the middle of one of the major stellar arms."

"Are you from around here, then?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Not quite. Cal'shi is in the next arm over."

"What's it like?"

"Lovely," he said, crinkles forming in the corners of his eyes. "It's a planet-wide forest, nice and cool, no seasons. We build our cities in the trees, because they grow so large. Some say the Calidriss have lived there since we could fly, hundreds of thousands of years ago."

"I don't think humans have even had cities for a hundred thousand years," Donna remarked.

"Well, you'll get there." His eyes sparkled playfully.

"How come you left Cal'shi?"

Hssii'shi dropped his gaze to the floor for a moment, and she worried she'd said something insensitive. She knew the Doctor didn't like being asked about his homeworld; was this something like that? But then he looked back up, and she was relieved to see that he didn't look remotely upset.

"I've always been a bit of an adventurer," he said shyly. "I wanted to explore the galaxy. See what's out there."

Donna smiled to herself. Maybe she and Hssii'shi had more in common than she thought. Suppressing a cringe, she reached sideways to grab a couple packages of food from the ground next to the chest, and tossed what seemed to be roasted stick insects over to Hssii'shi. "So, you got a first mate? Someone you travel with?"

He shook his head. "Calidriss don't travel," he explained. "No one really knows what to make of me, my own species or not."

"Xenoanthropology lessons aside," Narriss interjected testily, "how are we to make it back to the lower level?"

Donna sighed. That was the issue. Regardless of whether they could find another shelter in time, they would eventually have to get back to the first floor of the maze. The patterns in the brick that the Doctor had spotted clearly meant something, but he hadn't gotten around to explaining it to her. And then, if they did find their way down, how would they get to the centre?

"The Doctor figured it out," she said, raising a cocksure eyebrow. "How hard can it be?"

* * *

Giving himself a quick pat-down, the Doctor shrugged apologetically. "Left 'em in my jacket. Sorry."

Dakro huffed.

He opened his mouth, then, rethinking, shut it again. It was technically a species thing, and he didn't know whether he was allowed to bring it up. He didn't want to anger her… but he figured it was justified under the circumstances. "How long can your species go without food?" he asked, and braced himself for a snide comment or a smack.

"A week, maybe. Couple days before we start losing function." She raised an eyebrow in his direction, as if to say she knew he was fishing for information again. When he didn't push further, she said, "Let's hope we run into another chest soon."

It had been just about half an hour, by the Doctor's count, since they had stumbled upon the second floor. The most exciting thing to happen so far was still finding the animal carcass, and he was getting rather bored. Dakro had been quiet—probably because he'd been quiet—only speaking up on occasion to ask about the Maze. Normally, he might have attempted to break the silence with a quip or a bit of small talk, but right then he wasn't in the mood to chat.

 _Seven's Trial,_ he mused, chewing on his lip. _Of all things…_

"So you signed yourself up for this… _contest_." Dakro glanced sideways. "Why?"

"I don't know," he confessed. "Not so sure I did, anymore. It'd be one thing if I'd gotten myself captured, but I brought Donna with me. I don't think I would have done that if I'd had any other choice. Hope not, at least."

"It's bad, then."

"Well… yeah." He wrinkled his nose. "I've heard of the Trial a few times, but I try to stay away from this time and place. Never got around to finding it. That's the strange thing," he said, spinning around to face her, "everyone in this area of the galaxy has heard of the competition, but no one knows where it is. Even the Pallori colonists of Frontier Seven don't know, and they've been here for millennia." Turning to walk forwards again, the corner of his mouth curled up into a hint of a grin, despite the self-admitted seriousness of the situation. "Wherever we are on the planet, very few people have ever seen it."

"And lived," Dakro added.

"And lived," he agreed. "That would be the bad part."

"Then you're some sort of… what, do-gooder? Vigilante?" She raised an eyebrow. "Militant?"

The Doctor shot her a dark, warning look. "I prefer 'traveller'."

"Odd spot for sightseeing."

"And you?" he asked, changing the subject abruptly. "What're you doing out here?"

"I told you, shipping supplies to the Nebula."

"I sort of meant before that."

"Oh." She shrugged. "There's only so much to do in the Core."

"Rather a lot, in my experience. Although… maybe not just yet." He tried to remember how things in the Core would be going around then.

With a short laugh, she continued. "S'pose I just got bored. My homeworld was always a bit stuffy for me."

"Tell me about it," the Doctor muttered.

"I needed an income of my own, 'cause my family didn't approve of me leaving the planet. So I bought a freighter and started hauling cargo freelance." Looking momentarily embarrassed, she grimaced. "Obviously the arms running isn't ideal. There isn't much work around here these days that's not tied up in the war in some way, and I have to make a living somehow." She sighed, and kicked at a pebble on the ground. "At least this way I know who I'm helping."

The Doctor felt a pang of sympathy. For the first time, he saw her not as simply difficult, but as a person with strong morals and a strong will, forced to involve herself in a war she didn't support. He couldn't say he entirely approved of her career choices, but he could understand the situation she was in. She wasn't exaggerating; around this time, give or take a few years, the conflict would be at its peak, running far and deep throughout the Nebula and all its surrounding systems. It was understandable, the way she'd found herself tied up in it all. He tried to stay away from such major events—he'd found over the years that he possessed a surprising tendency to interfere with the course of history—but he knew how it went. He knew all too well.

"And you're really sure you can't remember how you got here?" he asked, frowning in concentration. "Nothing about who attacked your ship? Where exactly were you at the time?"

She shook her head. "I can't remember any more than I told you already. We weren't anywhere special, just a few light-years from the Eastern Front. We had just slowed down to navigate through the gas clouds on that side of the Nebula."

"Where'd you come from?"

"The refuelling depots at Saris."

He blew out an exasperated breath. "I don't think there's any connection between the five of us, except that we all ended up near the Nebula in some way. Not much to go on."

They arrived at a fork in the path, and the Doctor paused in the centre and spun on his heel, looking for any clue as to which was the better route. He studied the pattern in the stones. It hadn't changed: two parallel rows of one dark brick to one light. He sighed.

"Doctor?"

He hummed in acknowledgement, staring down the hall to the left, trying to judge which direction it led.

"The patterns lead towards the staircases, right?"

"Seems like."

"But they started at the entrance hall, so they must be meant to point in one direction. They can't work both ways, or each route would lead to the same floor no matter what direction you walked along it, which would have you trapped in a loop between floors. And that shouldn't happen, because it would be absurdly complicated to get someone to the centre that way."

He turned to face her, intrigued.

"Don't you see? We've gone the wrong direction. The one-brick pattern on this side of the staircase is meant to lead people down to the first floor, back towards the stairs we just came from. But it's supposed to go forwards at all times. Which means we're walking backwards."

A grin spread across his face. "Oh, you are brilliant!" he declared. Then he grimaced. "We've gotta go all the way back now, don't we?"

"You're asking me?" she said.

"Well–" He sucked in a breath through his teeth. "At least we know whether we're going in exactly the wrong way. But who's to say there's only one right way?"

Dakro turned around reluctantly, glaring at the long stretch of corridor they'd already walked. "There must be something," she insisted. "It'd be a pretty boring game if no one knew where they were going."

"I think…" The Doctor's voice trailed away as he became distracted, squinting all the way down the hallway. He thought he'd seen movement. "I think you're–"

He cut off abruptly, grabbed Dakro by the arm and dragged her around the corner, pressing a finger to his lips to tell her to stay quiet as she opened her mouth to protest. Just in time; a flicker of green appeared at the very end of the hall, a snout, followed by a hulking lizard-like body. It parted its jaws and took a deep, hissing breath, tasting the air. Probably for them.

"What is that?" whispered Dakro, peering around the corner despite the Doctor's attempts to push her back. She looked behind them, then ahead, but the hallway lacked any turns for dozens of meters in either direction. There was no way out.

"Well," he said, "if we're the prey… then that would be the hunter."

* * *

Torch held ahead of her, Kai climbed the final steps of the darkened staircase and came face-to-face with a wooden door.

"About bloody time," she muttered. It had taken her hours to reach the nearest set of stairs, even knowing all the clues that had allowed her to get there. "Would it have killed him to build this place a bit smaller?"

She swung the pack off her shoulder and grabbed her helmet—thermoregulating, more than enough to keep her cool when combined with the rest of her outfit—before she wrenched the door open. Blinding sunlight poured out of the gap, and she tossed the torch to the floor, no longer needed. _Finally_ , she thought to herself. She'd been getting sick of the smell of rot that permeated the air in the lower levels of the Maze.

It really was an awful lot of work to go through. Lots of walking. Lots of running. Lots of—she shuddered—talking. To other bounty hunters, no less. Kai was more than happy to deal with her employers, more often than not the rich and famous of Sector Delta, because they had some respect for what she did and how she did it. But she didn't deal with other hunters. Other hunters were sloppy and crude, and the type to show up for such a barbaric competition as this were no exception.

And, now she thought of it, neither was the type to come up with it. It was evident that Tarik thought they were of like mind. He couldn't be more wrong; they were as different as two humans could be, the way she saw it, and if it weren't for the astronomical sum she stood to gain from doing this she wouldn't put up with him for a second. He dressed himself up in all the trappings of importance, of modernity and sophistication, but it was a falsehood. No one who would put as much time and effort into proving their cleverness as he did could possibly think well of themselves.

In short, he annoyed her. Luckily, he annoyed plenty of other beings as well, beings of real wealth and importance. Exactly the sort of being she dealt with.

Stepping out into the parched heat, Kai rolled back her sleeve and powered up the little transmitter strapped to her wrist. She grinned; though the heat shielding around the Maze was interfering with the signal, she would be able to get a communication through no problem. She'd originally hoped to be able to send it from the first floor, but the reinforced stone had gotten in the way. Whatever else she thought of him, she had to admit: Tarik didn't do things halfway.

"'If any sort of unauthorized signal is transmitted to or from the Maze, it will be detected and traced with ease,'" she quoted in a mocking tone, and gave a short laugh. Tarik could trace the signal all he liked. It wouldn't do him any good.

With a press of a button, she sent her transmission and powered down the device. Not a moment later came the sound of a distant explosion, picked up and enhanced by her helmet's audio system. A wolfish smile played across her lips. In a few minutes, Tarik Amir would be dead, and she would be rich.

 _Too easy._

* * *

Across the vast stone structure, over the mansion and the sloping fields beyond, Kai's space liner rested in the sun on the private landing platform. To one side, several dozen meters from the platform, sat a long metal construction, housing the power generators for the main complex. From here came the electricity that powered the house, the sensor arrays, and the heat shielding protecting the building from the ever-present sun; more generators were tucked behind the house, providing power to the Maze and its dedicated systems. Power was vital on the bright side of Frontier Seven. Without shields in place, no human could survive the heat and the radiation thrown off the by system's star. That was what made the plan so straightforwardly brilliant.

The space liner received her signal, and a slim plastic box strapped to the dynamos flickered to life. It began pushing energy into the engines, but the ship didn't move; the thrusters themselves had been disabled upon landing. The power built up within the system, climbing to critical levels, right until the engines detonated. The explosion levelled the landing platform, and everything within a hundred-meter radius, the pyre blossoming into the pale blue sky.

It was only minutes before the heat shields used up their emergency power reserves and failed, dooming any living thing under their protection to a slow, smouldering death.


	6. Chapter 6

Tarik was sitting in the library, reading from _A History of the Core Worlds_ and sipping from his evening tea—which, strictly speaking, was a meaningless phrase on a planet that didn't rotate, but as the house was entering its night cycle he felt it fit anyway—when the windows above his head shattered with a deafening _boom_. Yelping in surprise, he fell off the settee, dropping both the book and the teacup; he landed hard on the floor and cried out in pain. Bits of glass were scattered across the room, digging into his arms and chest and cheek, and when he raised himself onto his hands and knees he noted little droplets of his blood marring the white carpet.

 _Orbital bombardment?_ he thought dimly. _No, no. Shields. Nothing could blast through those shields._

Confused, head spinning and ears ringing, he pulled himself to his feet and staggered to the broken window, glass crunching under his booted feet. He flicked his hand upwards in the air, and the curtains swept out of the way.

Brilliant light streamed into the dim room, causing Tarik to stumble backwards, arm raised to shield his eyes. He blinked into the glare. Where his little spaceport had stood, a couple hundred meters away, a great fireball now filled the sky. As the ringing in his ears subsided, he became aware of a low roar from the fire, sending a tremor through the floor. His brain seemed to short out for a moment, struggling to make sense of what his eyes were seeing.

He didn't have long to process; as he stared out the window, all the lights in the room abruptly shut off. A high-pitched, rhythmic beeping sounded over the intercoms. The screen in the wall next to the door flickered to life, readouts flashing red; he shook his head clear and dashed over to see what was wrong.

Systems were failing across the board, power falling to critical levels. Lights, water, air—everything was shutting off. The emergency generators had already kicked in, giving the vital functions of the mansion just enough time for the droids to fix the problem. But something told him this problem wasn't getting fixed. Which meant he only had a couple minutes before–

"Heat shielding!" he hissed aloud. He only had a couple minutes before the heat shielding cut out and he was slowly roasted alive.

He turned in a circle in the darkened room, frantically trying to think of a plan. From the look of his front yard, the main generators had been vaporized. How and why would have to wait.

 _Power, power, need power_. Tarik was glad, right then, that he had insisted on designing the complex himself, because the answer came to him in a flash of awful realization. There was one part of his property that didn't rely on those generators. He just really didn't want to be there.

He lunged for a tablet on his side table, tucked it into his pocket, and sprinted out of the room. Taking the stairs three at a time, he raced across the foyer and through the hall directly opposite the main entrance—a smaller wing housing the controls and readyrooms for the Maze. He skidded into the last room on the left and grabbed a utility belt from a table full of equipment, then ran down another flight of stairs and arrived in the stone tunnel that led to the centre of the Maze. He stopped, panting, and fumbled with the tablet until he managed to activate the blast doors throughout the building, sealing himself off from the house.

He stood there, breaths loud in the sudden silence, until his heart began to slow.

It was pitch black; the tunnel was wired up with the house, and was not afforded any of the limited energy reserves. But it was several meters underground, and Tarik knew the packed dirt alone would be enough to protect him from the radiation and heat for some time. He knelt on the cold stone floor and dug through the utility belt until his fingers found a small torch, and he flicked it on with a sigh of relief. He wasn't a fan of dark, enclosed spaces, the irony of which was not lost on him.

Standing again to strap the belt around his waist, Tarik swept the narrow beam of light across the corridor. It wasn't cramped—there was room enough for the small vehicle parked in an alcove a few meters away—but it was cold and damp, and the knowledge that he was trapped down there made it much more uncomfortable than usual. The heat shields would be gone by now. He couldn't open the blast doors without exposing himself to the extreme conditions outside. Until he could contact someone to get him out, he was stuck under the Maze's shields.

He huffed out an exasperated breath, marching towards the transport. "Of all things!" he muttered to himself. In over a decade of living on the bright side of Frontier Seven, he had never had such a catastrophic failure. There were countless mechanisms to detect and prevent exactly this sort of thing—but, of course, none would be of much use with all ten main generators blown to bits.

Then again, in all the years he'd been running the Trial, he had never arranged a game like this.

Was this the Doctor's doing, somehow? Had the Time Lord found a way out of the Maze and gone on the offensive?

Impossible. No one could get out. Not even Tarik, now. He didn't care how good the Doctor was supposed to be, not even he could manage that. Which meant this had all been set up before the contest. Which meant…

He stopped in his tracks. "Kai," he growled out loud. Of course it was Kai. The other hunters, however successful, were incompetent compared to her, and nowhere near as ambitious.

It was a good plan, he couldn't deny. The more he thought it through, the more he realized how close he'd come to death just a couple minutes ago. She must've rigged up her ship to explode on her signal. (Tarik didn't search the hunters' possessions before sending them off—he was serious about watching for any signal in or out of the Maze, but if a participant could cheat so skillfully as to avoid even his detection… well, he could respect that. All the better for the viewers.) Anyone who came to investigate, if they could even manage to find his property, would assume it had been an accident. Her only mistake was failing to consider that the house and the Maze could run on different systems.

He had been a fool to assume she was on his side. Her loyalties lay where the credits were; that could only mean that someone had a bounty out on him. He sniffed imperiously. _Can't imagine why_ , he thought. Well, regardless, her first attempt on his life had failed. With any luck, she wouldn't get a second.

Climbing into the little car, Tarik pulled a communicator from his belt. There was no signal. A tendril of doubt wound its way around his heart. Without a signal, he couldn't have contacted one of his droids, let alone someone off-world. There were plenty of ways out of the Maze, but without a ship waiting for him he wouldn't get anywhere useful.

 _Not good. Really rather bad._

Tarik used his keycard to start up the engines, and he began the long, slow drive to the entrance. He didn't have much of a choice now; if he wanted to get a communication out, he would have to go somewhere where the heavy stone bricks wouldn't interfere. Combined with the dampening effects of the heat shielding, the only place he would get a signal was the roofless third floor.

As soon as he reached his destination, he picked up the tablet again and remotely disabled the bounty hunters' emergency homing beacons. If he was going to be trapped in the Maze with them, he would take every advantage he could get. Out of a secret compartment under the passenger's seat, he took a small pistol and tucked it in his waistband, then gathered a number of ration packs from the glovebox into the largest pouch of his belt—which clashed dreadfully with his outfit, he couldn't help but notice. Then he got out of the car, locked it, and moved to stand in the dais in the middle of the circular room.

Before he entered the Maze, however, Tarik had an idea. He paused, and tapped another command instead: the controls to scramble the paths. The deafening scrape of shifting stone filled the chamber, and he grinned to himself. As the rumours claimed, some of the Maze's configurations did indeed contain clues to help those inside navigate. Most did, in fact, because the Trial was no fun if everyone was simply wandering around blind. (Many of those watching from the outside assumed that all versions of the Maze could be navigated.) But not this one. If anyone had yet noticed the patterns in the stone, or that the safe rooms were only located along the paths to the centre, they would soon be sorely disappointed.

Of course, that raised another issue: What was he to do about the targets? And stars knew, he kept the Maze well-stocked with a good number of deadly things, not least of all Kai. Perhaps he should end the contest early, try again next year. That would save him the embarrassment of having the viewers watch him try to survive his own creation.

It was decided, then. Targets and hunters alike would have to be killed off, either by him, by each other, or by the Maze, and he would start fresh once all the systems were back up and running. Turning off all the surveillance devices with a few quick taps, he accessed the video feeds, replaced the live footage with a simple message— _Seven's Trial has been terminated_ , signed with his name—and shot a smirk at the tablet.

The Maze had fallen silent once again. Taking a deep breath, Tarik activated the dais and stood patiently as it ground upwards, through the gap in the ceiling, and settled level with the first floor. He glanced around, making sure he was alone in the centre of the vast cavern, and busied himself locking and double-checking all the exits. Now, there was no way anyone was getting out; not without his controller. Finally, he pulled up a holographic map of the Maze and zoomed in on the centre, calculating the best route to the third floor. It wasn't exactly the authentic experience, but he had greater concerns at the moment than playing fair.

Tablet in one hand and blaster in the other, Tarik picked the first path to his left and started off into the Maze.

* * *

The Doctor retreated around the corner and pressed his back to the wall, attempting to silence his breathing. Dakro stood beside him, stock still, eyes wide and alert. Down the corridor, he could hear the heavy footsteps of the alien bounty hunter, approaching their meagre hiding spot. If they had not already been detected—and he figured they had, it seemed they'd been stalked for some time—then they had seconds now before they were spotted. Seconds more before they were shot. He pressed a fist to his forehead, willing himself to think up a brilliant escape plan.

To the left, across the corridor in which the hunter stood, the nearest junction was several dozen meters away. To the right, it was even further. The Doctor only seen the hunter for a brief second but, unless he really had gotten rusty, he recognized him as a male Hazrian. _Good hearing, impenetrable scales, excellent sense of smell_ , he recounted to himself. No chance they could outrun him, not for long; even if they could, he was armed, and they were not. And, though he didn't believe it would be conducive to their escape to mention it to Dakro, from the state of the hooved animal back near the stairs, he figured that they would probably be eaten after they were killed.

 _Or before…_

The Doctor winced. It seemed there were no subtle ways out of this.

He turned to Dakro, and whispered, "Do not follow me."

"What?"

Before she could react, the Doctor took a deep breath and strolled around the corner, hands in his pockets. The bounty hunter was indeed a Hazrian, he noted—at least two meters tall and heavily-muscled, with large brown scales over every inch of his body and orange, slit-pupiled eyes, wearing a multitude of knives and least two blasters—just before said Hazrian stopped in his tracks, drew a rifle as long as the Doctor was tall and levelled it at his chest. He grimaced briefly, before arranging his face in a mask of pleasantry. He'd hoped to avoid the whole gun thing.

"Hello there," he said cheerfully, as if greeting a friendly acquaintance. "Lovely day, isn't it?"

The alien bared a set of wickedly sharp fangs. "Giving up so easily?" he hissed.

"Giving up? Never!" The Doctor stopped in front of him, the barrel of the gun aimed right at his hearts, and rocked casually back on his heels. "I just thought we could have a little chat. Before the murder bit."

His aim drifted downwards, and his long tongue snaked out from between his teeth, tasting the air for anything out of place. He regarded the Doctor with cold, narrowed eyes. This was not what he'd expected to happen, but he seemed willing to entertain it. The Doctor suppressed a smile; the hunter was overconfident. He couldn't believe an unarmed captive could pose a threat to him. The Doctor had been counting on that. Confidence and curiosity were a very dangerous combination—and he would know, because it had got him into a whole lot of trouble on more occasions than he could count.

The Hazrian gave a rattling laugh. "There is nothing you could say to stop me from killing you. I have a quota to meet."

"Well, at least give me a shot," the Doctor said mildly. He grinned to himself at the double meaning. "Let's start with names. I'm the Doctor, and you are…?"

He hissed in response.

"Fine, be that way." He shrugged. "If I'm right, you must be one of the esteemed participants of the bounty hunting competition Seven's Trial. Now, isn't that just a mouthful of melodrama? How's about you be a good lizard-man and tell me who's running this thing."

"And why would I do that?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Because if I know anything about the Trial, I know that you're in just as much danger as I."

That was not the right thing to say. The Hazrian chuckled and raised the gun to the Doctor's head, apparently fed up with humouring him.

The Doctor took a step back, readying himself to jump out of the way. "Alright, alright, just wait, just one sec. Let me see how much of this I can get right. You're a Hazrian, yeah? And this is– well, you know when this is, and, of course, I know when this is. Roughly. So, I would bet my left shoe that you fought against… oh, what was it?" He tapped his fingers against his leg as he paced in a circle around the bewildered bounty hunter, trying to jog his memory, then spun to face him with a finger pointed accusatorily. "Tulokons! You were involved in the war against the Tulokons, weren't you?"

Then the Doctor frowned. "Hmm. Well see, that means we have a problem. Because if my memory serves—and it very often does—your side figured the best way to defend their planet was to use humans as scarecrows. Lock 'em up and put them on the front lines, try to scare off your enemies before they get to you, which, frankly, explains quite a lot about your attitude towards this whole ordeal. Think it's alright to kill a person just 'cause it's convenient, do we? Just 'cause it's _profitable_?"

A growl rumbled from the Hazrian's chest. "I do not have to defend the actions of my people to a _human_ ," he spat. "Nor must I defend what I have done to survive, over the course of the war or otherwise."

"Oh," said the Doctor, fixing him with a dark stare, "except I'm not human. And I can tell you: you most certainly do."

Surprise flickered in his eyes, and his aim flagged a bit. "Tarik said he captured two humans."

Any anger he'd felt was instantly replaced by curiosity and he raised his eyebrows, mouth open in a slight smile. "Did he? And who would this 'Tarik' be?"

Realizing he'd slipped up, the hunter gave a furious hiss and raised the gun again, claw poised over the trigger. The Doctor backed away, hands raised in a soothing gesture.

"Now, now, let's not be hasty." He paused. "I don't suppose you know how to get to the centre of the Maze, do you?"

He dove out of the way as a shot missed him by a hair, rolling and coming up on one knee. He tensed as the hunter spun around to face him, taking aim again, but before he could fire the blaster was wrenched out of hands in a flash of red. Suddenly Dakro stood between him and the Doctor, the rifle was skidding across the stone, and she gripped a smaller blaster in her hands. The Doctor wondered obtusely where she'd been carrying a gun all this time before he realized that she had nicked it right from the hunter's holster.

He scrambled to his feet. "I told you to stay back!" he whispered, guiding her away from him.

"He was going to kill you," she replied, eyes trained on the bounty hunter.

The hunter gave a bloodcurdling snarl. "I will kill you both yet!" he roared—and then there was a knife in his hand and he was charging at the Doctor.

Dakro fired off one shot, then another. He stumbled backwards from the impact, his leather chest plate torn and burnt, his scales blackened where the shots had connected with his chest, but he was unharmed. She dropped the blaster, face blank with shock, and it clattered to the floor.

The Doctor grabbed her hand. "Run!" he shouted, wheeling about and dragging her down the hallway. A screech sounded behind them as the hunter gave chase.

They rounded the corner and sprinted for the closest junction, the Hazrian's pounding steps growing closer and closer as they ran. The Doctor realized that they would not make it; if they did, they would have nowhere to go. They couldn't keep up this pace for long.

Then the rumbling started. He skidded to a stop as the ground began to shake beneath their feet, stumbling a bit as he tried to keep his balance. A little ways back, the Hazrian, targets forgotten, was looking around for the source of the tremor. The Doctor knew right away what it was.

"The Maze is shifting!" he yelled to Dakro over the cacophony.

She hardly had time to look alarmed before, with a great, awful scraping noise, the walls of the corridor began moving towards each other. Towards them.

"Not good!" the Doctor exclaimed, and took off again, Dakro on his heels. He gritted his teeth as the walls closed in, slow but steady—six meters, five meters, four, three—and for a moment he thought they might not make it to the next hallway. But they burst out into the junction, which was now transforming into a dead end hall, with room to spare. He turned just in time to see the Hazrian bounty hunter behind them, struggling to get to the opening.

Without thinking, the Doctor lunged towards the closing gap. "Take my hand!" he shouted, and pushed himself between the walls, arm outstretched.

The hunter was scrabbling at the walls, trying to claw his way out. But he was much bigger than the two humanoids; his scales scraped against the walls, his weapons catching on the stone bricks. He reached desperately for the Doctor's hand, but he was too far away.

The Doctor knew he wouldn't make it. The walls pressed in on his chest, threatening to trap him too, and with one final reach he squeezed out of the gap and withdrew his arm. He found he couldn't stop watching the Hazrian, just meters away from him, terror etched on his features as the walls continued relentlessly on their path; he recognized the shift in his eyes as he, too, realized he was about to die. His mouth opened in a final gasp for breath, and finally the Doctor shut his eyes. There was a series of sickening crunches, a resounding _bang_ , and then it was over.

He stood there for a moment, breathing hard, listening to the sounds of the Maze shifting elsewhere. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to turn away. Dakro was a few feet down the hallway, her back to him, and he moved over to her side.

"Are you alright?" the Doctor asked quietly.

Dakro wiped the sweat from her forehead, and he noticed that her hands were shaking. He was just about to offer some sort of comfort—she had just seen a being crushed to death, and that was enough to rattle anyone, no matter how tough they acted—when, barely audible, she whispered, "I shot him."

He blinked in surprise. That was not the issue he thought she would fixate on.

"Well… it's okay," he said, "it didn't hurt him."

"But I didn't know. I thought I would kill him." She looked at him, and suddenly she seemed nothing like the witty, sharp-tongued person he'd taken her for. She seemed small. "I could've killed a person."

The Doctor held her gaze, searching, and realized that she was completely sincere. He had to admit, it was unexpected. Putting aside his surprise for the time being, he walked over to the wall and sat himself down on the floor, cross-legged, leaning back against the stone. He patted the floor beside him.

Hesitantly, Dakro sat down. She glanced in the direction of the sealed corridor and quickly looked away.

"He was about to kill us," said the Doctor after a minute of silence.

She nodded slowly. "I know."

"For sport."

"I know."

"He knew the blaster wouldn't hurt him. He chose to attack."

"I know." Dakro sniffed, and ducked her head so he couldn't see her face. "I shouldn't have done it."

The Doctor looked down at his hands, clasped in his lap, and bit his lip in consideration. He was, admittedly, out of his depth. He knew he'd been afforded a glimpse of the Dakro that Dakro tried very hard not to show him—possibly anyone. If he'd been told just over a day ago that this spiky red mystery alien would be sitting next to him, guilt-ridden over shooting at a bounty hunter, he would never have believed it. But it was a surprise more welcome than the alternative.

All of a sudden, he saw himself in her. He saw just how alike they were. And he understood, perhaps more than anyone else in the universe, how she felt.

Half of him rebelled at the idea of continuing on this train of thought. He knew where it would inevitably lead, and that was not a place he liked to be. There was really no choice in it, though; she was upset, and not just over the Hazrian. He could help. Who would he be to refuse?

Rubbing a hand over his mouth, he closed his eyes for a brief moment and tried to think of something useful to say. "Dakro…" he began, voice low and quiet. "Sometimes people just make mistakes. There's no rhyme or reason to it, there's not even always blame to be assigned. Sometimes people do bad things when put under pressure. And sometimes… all you can do is move on. Forgive yourself, and do better next time." He sighed, and muttered, "Just be glad your mistake didn't end up hurting anyone."

Dakro turned to face him. He continued to stare at the floor. "I'm sorry," she burst out.

Then he looked up at her. _So many unexpected developments today_ , he mused. "For what?"

"I…" She sighed. "I've been terrible to you. Right from the start. I thought I had good reason, I honestly, really thought I knew you, and what kind of a person you were. But… I think this whole mess has made it clear that I've misjudged you. Badly." She took a deep breath. "And I think you deserve an explanation."


	7. Chapter 7

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "An explanation?" he repeated. "You mean you weren't just being difficult?"

He only meant to tease, but Dakro levelled him with a hard stare that said she was being serious. "Right. Sorry." He cleared his throat. "By all means, explain away."

Between attempting to keep everyone alive and figure out how to escape the Maze, he hadn't had a whole lot of time to think. The mystery of Dakro's problem with him had taken a back seat amongst all the running and imminent threats of death and, regardless, she clearly hadn't wished for him to know. He'd been willing to drop the subject permanently, but he had to admit he was still curious. And if there was anything at all that could help them find their way out, well, getting along with Dakro was surely up there.

"You've probably guessed what I'm going to say," Dakro said, "Time Lord smarts and all."

The Doctor glanced away with a frown, studying the cracks in the floor. There it was again: _Time Lord_. When, since being dropped in the entrance hall, had she passed up the opportunity to mention his species? Even now, as she tried to make things right, she hadn't shaken the habit.

Now that it was quiet and he had a moment to think, he finally registered all the things she'd said since the entrance hall. _Militant_ , she'd called him. Said she knew _enough_ about him, about his people. He remembered their meal in the first safe room, when she'd warned the others not to trust him. He remembered how she'd laughed when he said he was good at getting out of places alive…

And, finally, it all clicked into place. He nearly groaned out loud at the obviousness of it all, but settled for squeezing his eyes shut. He really was getting old; old and thick, he was. Maybe the sedative was still clouding his thoughts. Or maybe he just hadn't wanted to acknowledge it. Because, now he thought about it properly, the things she'd been hinting at would have made perfect sense, if he'd been thinking then, and those things were not things he liked to think about.

He didn't want to face those things. He really didn't want to.

But he took a deep breath and reigned in his self-control. Nothing to be done now. The sooner this was cleared up, the sooner they could move on. _That's all that matters,_ he reminded himself. _The sooner I resolve this, the sooner we find Donna, the sooner we get out._

The Doctor cleared his throat uncomfortably. "It's about the Time War," he stated, more than asked.

Dakro went to speak, something akin to guilt in her eyes, but the Doctor interrupted.

"If it's about the war, I really don't need an explanation. I get it. I understand." He twined his fingers together, fiddling with his thumbs. "You– you're free to think whatever you like about it, I don't need an apology. Just forget about it."

"Doctor," she said sternly, "listen. I'm trying to say I was wrong and I am not going to repeat myself."

The Doctor felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth, witnessing once again her stubborn pride, and gestured for her to continue. He wasn't winning that one, it seemed.

She shifted restlessly, and he guessed it was only partially because of the rough stone floor. "I should start from the beginning. See–" She sighed. "Remember when I said my homeworld was stuffy? I was, perhaps, being a bit harsh. Where I come from, life is valued above everything. That's sort of our thing. All violence is condemned; it hardly even exists in our society. No one can remember the last time we participated in any sort of armed conflict, and for a thousand generations we've been the peacekeepers of the Core, the exemplars for– for pacifism and amity, and all that… stuff," she finished lamely.

"Forgive me," said the Doctor, "but I ran into the United Peacekeeping Forces near Ocrunus a while back. They're based with your lot, aren't they? I thought—and it's rare that I can say this, in my line of work—I thought they were perfectly lovely people. You don't quite seem to think so."

"They're fine. Most of them." Dakro fidgeted again, searching for the right words. "It's not the spirit behind it, don't get me wrong. Honestly, the more I see of the galaxy the more I appreciate those things we were taught." She shook her head. "But you know what the Core Worlds can be like, always nosing into each other's business. When you said you were a Time Lord… well, I grew up hearing stories of the Last Great Time War."

"Funny sort of bedtime story," he remarked.

She continued, ignoring him. "They said it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, said both sides had committed the most terrible acts of violence." Her brows knit into a frown. "They condemned you for it. All of you."

The Doctor looked away. So that was her issue with him: he was Gallifreyan, and Gallifrey had turned to war, millennia upon millennia ago. It sounded so simple the way she said it, far too simple for what he knew to be an agonizingly complex issue.

"Condemned," he echoed. Reasonable. Logical, from a certain point of view. And he was all for nonviolence; he'd been around far too long to place much stock in fighting as a method of problem solving. But at the same time, he had found that absolute pacifism was rarely the answer, especially when it forbade taking action in the face of injustice. When one party was not peaceful, completely unwilling to consider a peaceful course of action, and, most importantly, hell-bent on hurting innocent people…

Violence for the sake of violence was high on the Doctor's list of the most disgusting things in the universe—just above that special kind of mould that only seemed to grow on the walls of the TARDIS's engine room, and just below pear-flavoured baby food—but he would never even dream of sacrificing real, tangible lives just to preserve his moral integrity. Just to give himself plausible deniability. He'd been forced to prove that a lot in his life. As far as he was concerned, choosing to stand by and watch as people died—as people were _killed_ —was as much an act of violence as doing the killing.

He didn't say as much, though; he had the feeling she'd worked that out. Or at least gotten the gist. Instead, he shot her a smile.

"Bit strong, don't you think?" he teased.

Dakro smiled back, and some of the tension between them lifted. "Probably."

"What made you change your mind?"

She shrugged. "It's different, seeing it for yourself. It's… it's not as black-and-white as they'd have you believe, is it?"

"No." The Doctor's gaze went a bit distant. "No, it is not."

"I really didn't mean to be rude. I just assumed you were some sort of, well, murderer. And I didn't want anything to do with that. I do still try to follow a policy of nonviolence, I try, but the way I was taught it…" She shook her head. "Somewhere along the way, I think we forgot what war was really like."

The Doctor nodded slowly. "I understand," he told her. And he did. He really did. He sighed, and his voice went very quiet. "It's hard. War is hard."

"See, I know that now. Took me long enough. Kind of wish it hadn't taken an actual war for me to figure it out." Dakro shot a glance in his direction; a small gesture of companionship. "But it's for the best, I think. What kind of a universe would it be if war were easy?"

He met her gaze, and a broad grin spread slowly across his face. "Oh, I like you, Dakro–" He stopped, his expression turning to a frown. "You never told me your last name," he pointed out.

Dakro considered this for a second. Then, taking him by surprise, she held out her hand. "Dakro Ola," she introduced herself.

The Doctor accepted it. "Dakro Ola," he said, shaking her hand briskly, "you are brilliant, you are."

They both smiled, understanding that all was forgiven. The Doctor stopped himself breathing a sigh of relief; he hated drama. Well… maybe that was just a little bit of an overstatement. Donna would scoff at that, he realized, his thoughts suddenly darting back to the problem at hand. _Your whole life is nothing but drama, Martian boy!_ she would laugh. _You could star in your own reality show. No, y'know, you'd get kicked off for being too dramatic!_

Regardless, he was happy to be able to turn his full attention to their main predicament. _Right,_ he thought. _Now only a hundred other puzzles to work out_ …

The Doctor bounded to his feet and began pacing up and down the hallway, frowning in concentration. "Essak. Essak, Essak, Essak," he murmured to himself, in varying tones, trying to jog his memory. "Blimey, I am out of practice. Earth Empire, isn't it? Let me see. Colonists from Earth invade the area around the Nebula, set up settlements, get themselves some allies, tensions build between the humans and the native species until _bang!_ —"

Dakro startled.

"—The Essians—the species, not just the inhabitants of the Nebula—drive a human colony ship out of their solar system, call on their own allies to defend themselves from the aggressive invasive species, and the humans retaliate in an attempt to keep their new territory." The Doctor grimaced to himself. "Ugly war, very ugly," he muttered. "Not a shining moment in human history."

"No," Dakro agreed. "Less and less so, it seems." Her eyes glazed over, just slightly. "The fighting started right after I left home, but I've heard of border skirmishes and minor battles going back years and years. A lot of those planets, they're still arguing over."

The Doctor slowed, then stopped, regarding her with an inscrutable expression. He walked back over and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of her, searching her face until she met his eyes.

"I'm going to ask you to do something, something you probably don't want to do," he said. "But I promise, it is very important. I need you to tell me: What am I missing in this war? Why are you transporting weapons? You didn't start out doing that, I know you didn't. So why now? What's changed?"

She hesitated, glancing away.

"Dakro." His voice was low and quiet. "I'm sorry. I wouldn't ask you to talk about this, but I have to know. I have to know what's going on here if I am to help."

When she looked back up, he could see barely a trace of the distress he knew she must be feeling. They really were quite alike, he thought fondly.

"It's fine," she said. She took a steadying breath.

"You're right. When I began hauling cargo around the Nebula, I had nothing to do with either side of the conflict. At least, I thought I didn't. I sort of… I sort of knew what was going on but I didn't ask questions, because I never thought it would be my problem. I didn't think I was participating, so it didn't matter what I did." Her eyes implored him to understand. "I mean, I was transporting food. Medical supplies. To Empire planets, yes, but as long as I wasn't fighting I thought it was fine.

"But eventually I… started seeing things, as the war really got started. The first time I flew rations to a mining world right near Essak—the planet, not the nebula—I dropped out of hyperspace in the middle of a battle. Nearly got my whole crew blown up. As I was trying to land–" She swallowed hard, regaining her composure. "As I was trying to land, there was this convoy of civilian ships escaping behind the moon. The human fighters shot them all down. I saw when we were jumping out of there."

The Doctor stared at her for a moment, before shaking his head, dismayed. "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Dakro gave a bitter laugh. "You won't be in a moment. Cause then I found out that the people I worked for were hiding weapons in the shipments. They were involved with the humans. You have to believe me, Doctor, I had no idea. If I'd known…" She trailed off, and shuddered. "It wasn't just guns. They were smuggling torpedoes, acid-spray ammo, morph bombs, you name it. That's why I started working for the Essians: It was too late to change what I'd done. I figured I should try to set it right, even if that meant taking a more active role than I would like."

The Doctor barely heard the last part of her explanation. "Morph bombs," he repeated quietly.

Dakro's brow creased in confusion. "Yes, that's what I said."

"Morph bombs," he growled, getting to his feet suddenly as his voice rose in volume. "Incendiary eucremorphite bombs? You smuggled incendiary eucremorphite bombs?" His eyes flared with anger. "Do you know what those can do? Do you have _any_ idea?"

Dakro could only shake her head, the initial fear in her eyes quickly turning to belligerence in the face of the Doctor's anger. He immediately regretted his reaction, and knelt down next to her again.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Of course you wouldn't know, that's probably still top secret, EarthGov classified. I doubt they've even been used yet." He took a deep breath. "They're meant to explode like a regular bomb, but the explosion spreads tiny particles of a highly flammable compound over an area—oh, roughly five hundred square kilometres. The heat sets the whole thing on fire, it burns for weeks. Sometimes the atmosphere goes up too."

Her eyes had gone wide with horror. She tried several times to speak, but could do nothing but shake her head. There weren't really words for this sort of thing. Through his simmering anger and anxiousness about the whole situation—which had most certainly not been eased by this new piece of information—he was at least glad to see genuine regret on her face. It meant she would do whatever she could to right her mistake.

"Listen." The Doctor placed a hand on her shoulder, jolting her out of her train of thought. "It's not your fault. Right now, we don't have time to dwell on it. But as soon as we get out of here, Dakro, I promise you: We will fix this. I will not let those bombs see the light of day."

Slowly, she nodded. "Right. Right. Let's just get out of here." She glanced away. "I'm sorry," she said, in a small voice.

"Not your fault," he said firmly. "I should be the one apologizing. If I'd known it was that bad, I might've tried to intervene earlier."

That made her raise an eyebrow. "You may be good, but no way you're good enough to single-handedly stop a war."

"Done it before," he said mildly, "for better or for worse. But no, you're right, I can't just stop this one. This one's got some major and rather unfortunate events in which I cannot interfere without inflicting serious damage on time itself. I can, however, do something about those bombs. Those– those should not be here, to the very best of my knowledge, not here, not now. Just as soon as we get out of here…"

"If we ever do get out," muttered Dakro.

" _When_ we ever do get out," he corrected. He frowned. "Wait, no–"

She laughed, and pulled herself to her feet, helping the Doctor up. "Speaking of," she said, "I think it's about time you told me exactly how we are going to get out."

"Well, the thing is…" The Doctor gave her an apologetic look. "I've no clue."

She glared, as if she were resisting slapping him.

"Aw, I'll figure it out!" he exclaimed. "See, something occurred to me while we were being almost crushed, something I really, really should've figured out earlier—what can I say? I'm getting old." He began to pace up and down the hallway. "Anyway, I realized the fact that the walls can move would make it rather difficult to have a consistent way of navigating from the inside. Any set of clues, like the bricks, would have to work in an indefinite number of configurations, and that would take, well, just an immense amount of planning and forethought. It can only be assumed, therefore, that some versions of the Maze will be navigable and others will not. Now, there are ways of getting around it, of course, the technology should be available by now to… to let our captors change the pattern by hologram, or by phase-shift, or any number of things, really. But…" He pointed down the hallway. "It looks like it has not been utilized to its full potential."

Dakro looked. Indeed, there did seem to be an issue. While the walls on either side of them should be pointing to a third floor, the one at their backs, which had just nearly squashed them to death, sported a pattern of one dark brick to one light. It led not to any staircase, not anymore, simply to the other two walls. They had not seen such discrepancies before; the Doctor knew, instinctively, that they'd been put back to square one. Frustration bubbled beneath his skin. Truly, he had no idea how they would find their way now.

Perhaps the Maze would go back to how it had been? It was possible. But that could take hours, days, even, and every minute spent away from Donna and the others put them in greater and greater danger. And either way, they had lost their reference point; now that their forward-facing trail winding between floors had been interrupted, it might not be possible to figure out whether they were going the right way or not. There was little point trying to search for another kind of clue. The system would only cease to work again as soon as their captors so wished.

The Doctor pinched the bridge of his nose. He should have seen this coming. It was such a flimsy system, it was always bound to fail them at some point. Clearly, the target's ability to find their way was not a top priority for whoever was in charge. He felt rather toyed-with, to be honest.

Then he stopped in his tracks. _If we aren't a priority_ , he thought to himself, _perhaps there's someone who is._

"The hunters," he said aloud. An idea was forming in his mind. He pressed a closed fist to his forehead, trying to will it into completion.

Dakro cocked her head forward, gesturing for him to continue.

And there it was. He whirled to face her, and grinned. "The hunters must have a way to navigate the Maze, they've got to, no way they were just tossed in without any sort of contingency plan. They don't even have to be able to utilize it themselves, as long as the people watching can. And I can't imagine that the people watching would pass up an opportunity to know where the most dangerous beings around are at all times."

Realization lit up Dakro's angular features. "You think they've been bugged? Like they're carrying some sort of homing beacon?"

"Just like that!" he enthused.

"So if we could get a hold of whatever device they might be carrying with them, we could use it for ourselves, like we did the camera beetle?"

"Even better. Tell me, Dakro, what is an all-powerful gamemaster to do with the—probably very disgusting and messy and quickly rotting—remains of an esteemed bounty hunter?"

She grinned. "Send someone to remove it from the Maze."

"Brilliant!"

"Wait." She crossed her arms over her chest. "You want to wait here until someone comes, don't you? How long is it gonna take for them to show?"

He shrugged, unbothered. "No clue! It would seem to be our only option: wait for them, and follow them through the Maze, hopefully to a way out. But," he added happily, "at least we've got an option!"

Dakro considered this. "Well… it's certainly idiotic. It's probably just wishful thinking." She pursed her lips, as if unable to believe she was even considering that it could turn out. "Better than wandering around," she decided.

"Excellent. And now… we wait!" The Doctor moved swiftly over to the wall, sat down and crossed his legs. He breathed a deep sigh. He hated waiting.

* * *

"Oh, for God's sake!"

Donna slammed the door shut again, not bothering with the latch, and stormed back down the stairs. It had been God-knows-how-many hours, and the sun was still blazing bright and hot in the sky.

"It's still daytime?" asked Hssii'shi, a frown evident in his tone though he couldn't make one with his face.

She only huffed in response, but he got the point. "Just how long are the days on this stupid planet?" she grumbled.

"There is absolutely no way to tell until it completes a full rotation," said Narriss, deadpan.

"Thanks, I'd noticed actually."

Donna sat heavily against the wall, leaned an elbow against the supply chest and rested her chin in her hand. She didn't think she'd ever felt so bored in her life—an emotion that no one should logically be capable of while inside a giant, potentially deadly labyrinth. Without being able to see the motion of the sun, it was impossible to tell how long they'd been sitting there. The three of them had all fallen asleep at some point, making it even harder to keep track of time; Donna wished the Doctor had tossed her his watch as well as the sonic, which she had thus far found no use for. All she knew was that it felt like an eternity.

And, if she were being honest… it was scary. They hadn't made any progress in (according to her best guess) at least twelve hours, and their time was running out. Regardless of how hard they tried to ration the food and water, it wouldn't last forever, and their previous attempt had made it clear that they could not leave to find more until it was dark. Donna couldn't believe she'd managed to sleep, because she kept expecting something deadly to burst through those wooden doors. What, exactly, she had no clue. Narriss seemed pretty convinced they would run into the Beast and get eaten; he had mentioned it thrice already in the time she'd been awake. Maybe he had the right idea.

Most of all, though, she worried about the Doctor. No _superior Time Lord intellect_ would save him from a… a space tiger, or a flood, or the Beast, or whatever else might be waiting for him in there. He was, quite frankly, useless without her.

But from a more practical point of view, he knew a lot more about this place than she did. Somehow, she had become responsible for getting two other people to the centre of a maze she couldn't navigate. That was a big task for someone who really didn't know anything about the situation in which they'd been placed. And if she failed—which was seeming more and more likely lately—she didn't figure she'd find him or a way out.

She sighed.

Hssii'shi opened his beak, closed it again, and then hesitantly said, "Maybe there aren't any days."

Donna gave him an exasperated look. "It looks pretty day-ish out there to me."

"No, no, I meant–" He sighed. "You're not going to like this, but I've been thinking: I know of several tidally locked planets in and around the Nebula. I kept meaning to visit one. If this is a tidally locked planet, then it won't have days or nights. One side will face the sun at all times, and the other will always face away. We could be on the bright side."

He was right; she didn't like that. Not at all. "And how long have you been _thinking_ about this?"

His feathers rippled in discomfort. "Well… it was always a possibility."

"Great!" Donna exclaimed. "Just great. You're saying we've just wasted the last _whatever_ hours?"

"If I'm right—er—yes."

"And if you are, what do we do now?"

Hssii'shi winced, and gave a hapless shrug that looked unnatural on his narrow, bony frame.

Donna shut her eyes. "Alright," she said, "new plan. How do we get out of this room and back downstairs without you two burning to a crisp? C'mon, let's hear some ideas!"

Hssii'shi blew out a sigh. "Donna, it's obvious what we have to do next."

She raised an eyebrow. She certainly couldn't think of anything.

"He is saying you must go on without us," Narriss said matter-of-factly.

"What?" Donna laughed. "No way, that's not… that's not happening."

"You don't have a choice," Hssii'shi insisted. "You're the only one who can travel any distance in this heat. You can make it out of here. Right now, it seems, we can't. We can't hold you back. Besides–" He opened his beak in a smile. "Maybe you can find the Doctor and come back for us."

"You will certainly die anyways," Narriss added.

Donna looked back and forth between them, trying to gauge whether they were serious. She got the unfortunate feeling they were.

She scoffed. "Oh, come on. I'm not leaving you behind. End of story. And we're not gonna die, _Narriss_ , so you can give that up too."

Hssii'shi went to argue, but Donna's glare silenced him. He shut his beak.

"Now," she said testily, "we still need a plan. Does anyone have any real ideas?"

Hssii'shi thought for a long moment. "Narriss, how long do you think you could last in the heat?" he asked at last. "We do have water this time."

Narriss paused. "Certainly no more than an hour. Maybe forty-five minutes."

"That might just be enough time to get to another underground room," he pointed out.

Donna studied the sickly pale alien. "What do we do if it isn't? We could easily wander around this place for an hour or two or three without finding anything."

"Then we'll just have to figure out how to navigate. What was that thing the Doctor was talking about? The patterns in the bricks?"

"Yeah, well, I was thinking about that," she said. "I'd guess they're meant to lead to the staircases—which would be great, except… I don't think that can work. Not all the time, at least. Cause the walls of the maze move, right? So…"

Donna broke off. Hssii'shi and Narriss had turned towards the door, and appeared to be straining to hear something. "What? What's–"

Her question was answered before she managed to ask it, as there came a bang on the door to her right. She scrambled to her feet, heart in her throat, as the door was flung open. A terrific grinding, grating sound filled the room and she pressed her hands over her ears, the Doctor's speculations on the soundproof nature of the safe-rooms coming back to her all at once. Then the door was closed, and it went silent.

Standing at the top of the stairs was a person—or at least, Donna assumed it was a person. The figure was clad head-to-toe in grey and brown; boots, combat trousers, a pilot's jacket, leather gloves, a small pack slung over her shoulder. And a mask. The figure wore a mask and helmet, completely obscuring any face that may or may not be underneath. You never knew with aliens.

As Donna and the aliens stared at the newcomer, they reached up and pressed two buttons on either side of their head. With a hiss of decompression, segments of the helmet opened up and they hurriedly pulled it off.

"Easy, easy, just a human! Don't shoot!"

Donna's mouth gaped in disbelief. Before her was, indeed, a human woman. She had short black hair, messy and tangled and damp, framing an attractive oval face. Her skin, the colour of warm sandstone, was flushed and shining with sweat, and she took deep breaths of the cool underground air as she stood with her hands on her knees, angular eyes closed. Then she stood up straight, and strode down the steps.

The three others backed away.

"Stop right there," Donna ordered. Fumbling, she took the sonic out of the Doctor's jacket and levelled it at the woman, who stopped with one foot on the floor and raised her hands. "And who might you be?" she demanded.

"My name is Kai." She gave a roguish smile. "I'm here to get you out."


	8. Chapter 8

It was very quiet in the dead-end corridor where the two humanoids lay in wait. It would have been quieter, if not for the Doctor.

He was tapping his foot impatiently as he sat with his back against a wall, the sound echoing weakly off the stone. He'd taken his watch from his pocket and was turning it over and over in his fingers. Though it gave his hands something to do, it also increased his already acute awareness of the passage of time; with each seemingly erratic movement of the numerous and varied hands, tracing out circles and arcs against the beautiful golden watch face, his boredom grew more and more excruciating. They had been in the Maze for exactly thirty-four hours, thirty-five minutes, and twenty-one seconds, and the last three of those hours had been spent sitting, watching a hallway with a dead body squished between the walls.

Twenty-two seconds. Twenty-three. Twenty-four.

Dakro had fallen asleep in the corner, jacket folded under her head. No doubt, the whole ordeal had taken its toll on her as well. She'd been reluctant to take a break when whoever they were waiting for could show up at any moment, but it was dark and calm, and the second level wasn't as cold as the first. And he had insisted. She hadn't eaten since before they'd been trapped on the second level—they only had half a packet of dried meat left, and her people were largely vegetarians—hadn't slept since the safe room, over a full Earth day ago. She didn't complain, but the Doctor had seen how her rich red skin had taken on a pale, ashen tint, and her normally alert gaze had begun to glaze over. Her metabolism seemed to be a good deal faster than his, and that was bad news in a situation where they had limited food and water and were constantly on the move. He wished that he'd thought to bring a medscanner along with his watch and sonic. That would have been good.

With a huff of frustration the Doctor climbed to his feet, wincing as pins and needles prickled through his legs, and walked off a ways down the corridor. He didn't want to wake Dakro with his pacing, but he couldn't sit still a moment longer. Wandering from wall to wall he tossed the watch absently in the air, caught it in one smooth motion, tossed it again, caught it; when he opened his hand, the writing on the case back stared up at him.

He paused, the restlessness draining out of his body, replaced by a wistful ache. Almost against his will, his thumb moved to stroke the intricate patterns. He suddenly wished he had his sonic screwdriver to fiddle with instead.

Alone, it was harder to direct his thoughts along a productive path, and startlingly easy to dwell on things. He really never should have come here, to the Nebula, not now. He didn't know what he'd been thinking when he decided to join in on the Trial—for he doubted he could have accidentally stumbled into this situation—but it all seemed to have gone terribly wrong. He must have known he'd be tempted to interfere, to put a stop to all the killing, to end the whole Essian War. He must have known he couldn't. He couldn't make it stop. Not without–

Sighing, he rubbed his hand over his mouth and ruffled it through his hair. That was quite enough of that. He couldn't afford to get distracted now; there was a reason he had arranged to be here, and it had to be a pretty good one for him to put himself and Donna into such danger. He had a responsibility to the people he was trapped with, and he was going to get them all out alive. His own baggage didn't belong here.

Besides, it wasn't like there was nothing he could do. Dakro—he paused to chuckle to himself at how much less intimidating she looked when she was asleep—didn't deserve to be caught up in all this. Once they were done with the Maze, he could take her wherever she liked. It was a good thought. She could get away from the war, find a legitimate job, start anew. He might not be able to end the war, but nothing in the cosmos could stop him helping her, and everyone else stuck in there with them. It was, perhaps, a small act of atonement. But it was what he did.

The Doctor stopped in his tracks, a sudden flare of anger blazing in his hearts as, once again, he thought about what exactly he was getting them out of. It was despicable. Truly, truly revolting. How a person could ever kidnap living, sentient beings, rip them away from their lives and families and homes, and invite other beings to come hunt them for sport—for _sport_ —was so far beyond his comprehension that he felt, for once, properly like an alien. It wasn't just cruelty anymore; it was taking pleasure in cruelty. It was profiting from cruelty. That was more than enough to get him angry under normal circumstances, but whoever was out there had targeted his friends as well. No one got away with that.

"You've frozen."

He turned around to see Dakro, sitting up and staring at him.

"Sorry," he said, wandering back over to the dead-end wall. "Did I wake you?"

She shook her head, yawning. "Has anything–"

"Nope," he replied, before she finished. "Not a single thing."

She sighed.

The Doctor sat down with his back against the wall, as heavily as he could without bruising himself. "Y'know, there's a planet in the Andromeda galaxy called Winkanath. They hold biannual gladiator competitions where the lower class kidnaps members of the royal family and makes them fight to the death." He sniffed derisively. "At least they had the decency to kill you quickly."

"Well, how does that work?" Dakro mumbled, still only half-awake. "How big is the royal family?"

"The Winka have very short life spans, so they… well, suffice to say they make the most of the time they have."

Dakro chuckled, pulled her jacket back on and got to her feet, stretching her arms and legs. She walked off, beginning to pace as he had. The Doctor resisted the urge to flop over on the ground out of sheer boredom.

"Doctor?" she asked, after a moment.

He hummed in inquiry, idly examining a crack in the floor.

"What's that?"

"What's what?" There was no response. "Dakro?" He glanced up. "What–"

She'd stopped pacing, he realized belatedly. She was halfway down the hall, staring off at the junction, head cocked to one side. The Doctor scrambled to his feet, jogging to her side as the noise reached his ears as well: a scrabbling, scraping sound, interspersed with high-pitched whines and yelps, faint but growing rapidly closer. A prickle of alarm ran down his spine.

"Oh," he breathed. "Oh, that's not good."

"What is it?"

"Something not good!" he snapped.

A shriek echoed down the corridors, rising in volume and intensity as more and more voices joined in, an unearthly scream that seemed to resonate in his hearts and turn his blood to ice. It hit him in a sudden, terrible burst of clarity that by sitting next to a body, in a dead-end hallway, they were practically begging for an opportunistic hunter to come take a bite out of them.

The Doctor took off running for the junction (if they could just get out of this hall, he figured, they might stand a chance) but skidded to a halt a few meters from the end of the corridor. The creatures bounded into view, at least twenty of them, hissing and snarling as they skidded around the corner. He just had time to get a good look at the pack—the animals were like a mix of a wolf and a deep-sea fish, with four legs ending in wickedly gleaming claws, a hairless, rat-like tail, dark brown plates of armour covering their bodies and a narrow snout filled with long, needle-thin teeth—and then Dakro crashed into him and they backed quickly away.

He put an arm in front of her, placing his body between her and the creatures; they spread out in a semicircle around the two unfortunate bystanders, the short antennae that lined their jaws like whiskers twitching at the prospect of a fresh meal. One leapt forward and let out another shriek, echoed by the others, and Dakro and the Doctor winced at the piercing sound.

"Carnivores?" asked Dakro, shouting over the din.

"Arawni, I think," the Doctor called. "Scavengers from Ventos."

She frowned. "Ventos?"

"Back," he ordered, "just get back. If we aren't a threat then maybe– maybe they'll leave us and go after the body."

"They will?"

He glanced at her. "Maybe."

She hit him in the arm.

 _C'mon, Doctor, think,_ he urged himself. Another of the creatures lunged at them, snarling, threatening to attack, and he pressed himself and Dakro back against the wall. The light of the torches glinted gold in their pure black eyes. They didn't seem to be going after the body. He frowned. _Why not?_

 _Oh._

"Oh!" he exclaimed. "Oh oh oh!"

The Doctor shoved a hand into his trouser pocket and fished around for a moment; he pulled out the half-eaten package of meat with a triumphant grin.

"You idiot!" Dakro yelled.

"What?" he asked, affronted.

She grabbed it from his hand, took a piece and held it out in front of her, dangling it just out of reach of the arawni. They yelped and screeched louder, making skittish jumps at the morsel of food, emboldened by the smell. She flung the meat into the pack and they scrambled all over each other to get at it, the two humanoids momentarily forgotten.

The Doctor grabbed the sleeve of her jacket. "Slow and quiet," he whispered, and tugged her along beside him.

They moved to the right, inch by inch. One of the creatures, jostled away from the piece of meat, saw their movement and howled, drawing the attention of the others. Dakro pulled out a handful of the jerky, threw it as far as she could down the hallway, and the pack raced after.

The Doctor let out a sigh of relief. "Quick thinking," he breathed, and turned to run in the opposite direction–

Only to crash right into something hard and unyielding.

He staggered back, blinking, and found himself looking into a metal face. Two robots had arrived, tall and gangly and mostly human-shaped, with curved metal plates that made up their chests, faces, and joints. They clearly weren't designed to fit in with organic beings, lacking mouths and noses, with two long vertical slits down their faceplates, glowing yellow, to pass for eyes. Behind the robots hovered a large metallic box, lying lengthwise; the Doctor guessed it was some sort of coffin.

He grinned, arawni forgotten. "Ah! Androids! Look, Dakro, oh I do love an andr–" He broke off with a grimace; the droids had drawn rifles from their backs and levelled them at his chest, one pointed right at each heart. He sighed. "Maybe not, then."

"Target number three," one intoned. "Step away or you will be executed."

"Right, right." He paused. "Number _three_? Who's number one?"

The robots walked around him and Dakro without a second look, pulling the coffin towards the end of the corridor.

"'Bout time," he muttered. "That'll be the cleanup crew. Touchy bunch, aren't they?"

"Seriously?" Dakro stared at their backs. "Why've they got guns?"

Her question was answered a moment later when the pack of arawni, sensing the droids' arrival, abandoned their snack and rounded on them, shrieking their bloodlust into the tunnels. The first arawn threw itself at a droid, but before it could latch itself onto the metal chestplate the droid raised its rifle and shot it dead with unnerving accuracy.

"No, no, no!" shouted the Doctor, launching himself forward to grab at the droid's arms, trying to force the gun down towards the ground. It threw him off with no effort and he stumbled away, nearly tripping over his own feet.

Enraged, several more members of the pack jumped, snarling, at the droids. They let loose a flurry of shots, sending the animals sprawling across the stone floor, armour plates blackened and burned through. Four or five arawni ran from the slaughter, whimpering, tails lashing to keep their balance as they tried to dodge the blasts; the droids turned, and shot them too. The corridor fell silent, the smell of charred flesh suffusing the stale air.

The Doctor stalked up to one droid, practically trembling with anger. "They were running away," he snarled. "You didn't have to do that."

"The animals were a threat," it said, its voice a disconcerting imitation of someone explaining a simple concept to a child.

"What were they gonna do, eat you?" He snorted, pacing around to face Dakro. "Stupid, stupid robots," he muttered, "can't think for themselves, can't reason. Just programmed to do a job and– and kill whatever gets in their way."

Dakro was staring at the corpses of the little creatures, eyes wide with horror. Finally she swallowed, breaking her gaze away, and gave a shaky exhale.

The Doctor placed a hand on her shoulder, a bit firmer than necessary, and turned her around to face the wall. "You don't want to watch this," he said.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw one droid tap a command into a controller on its wrist. With a deep, rumbling groan, the wall that had sealed off the corridor shifted back, only a meter or so; the Doctor heard other walls moving slightly, deeper in the Maze, to accommodate it. He caught a glimpse of the inside of the gap, soaked in sickly green blood, before he looked away with a wrinkle of his nose. His senses were keen enough that he could smell the mingled iron and biliverdin from there, and it didn't smell nice.

The robots worked quickly, loading the Hazrian's mangled body into the coffin and replacing the wall. The Doctor was still facing the other direction when a flash caught his eye; he spun around just in time to see the box dematerialize in a shimmer of yellow light.

"Oh, no," he groaned. His plan had just gone up in smoke.

Dakro followed his gaze, and gaped. "What?" she exclaimed. "You said they'd bring him to an exit!"

"Yes," he said thoughtfully. "Yes, I did. Teleportation technology… that's a bit unusual around here. Not impossible, no. But someone went out of their way to get a hold of that."

"Doctor, focus." She raised an eyebrow. "How are we supposed to follow them to an exit if they don't go to an exit?"

"Well, they came from somewhere, didn't they? Gotta be better than here." An idea occurred to him—probably not a terribly good one, but an idea nonetheless. "Wait one minute," he told Dakro.

Stuffing his hands in his pockets, the Doctor meandered up to the robots. They didn't acknowledge his presence, busy doing something with their wrist controllers; that was already better than he'd hoped for. He edged closer, trying to see the little readout screens. He just needed to know whether they had control over the transporter or whether someone outside the Maze had authorized it…

"That's a nice bit of tech you've got there," he remarked casually. "If you'll just–"

As he reached out to touch the droid's wrist, a metal hand clamped around his own. He winced, squirming in the second droid's painful grip.

"Target three," it said, "you have been warned."

"Now–" He gasped as the robot tugged him backwards. "You still haven't told me who target one is!"

"Doctor," called Dakro, getting nervous. "Maybe you should leave them alone."

The Doctor twisted around, trying to break free and catching a brief look at his captor's readout. He paused, breaking into an open-mouthed grin.

"Oh, that is–"

"Doctor!" Dakro shouted. "Behind you!"

There was a click. He froze. Then something hit him, and white-hot pain exploded over his back, searing into his flesh. Someone cried out—he supposed that could have been him—and his vision went fuzzy, the image of the droid in front of him defocusing. Distantly, he felt the pressure on his wrist disappear and his knees begin to buckle.

 _Should've brought a medscanner,_ he concluded, before he collapsed on the blissfully cool ground.

* * *

Donna, Narriss and Hssii'shi exchanged incredulous glances.

"Get us out?" Narriss repeated. For once, a note of shock had crept into his tone.

"How?" Donna was still pointing the sonic screwdriver at the woman—Kai—as she stood with one foot on the floor, one on the bottom step, hoping very much that a human around this time period wouldn't recognize the device as harmless. At least, harmless in her hands.

Kai didn't answer right away. Hands held carefully away from her sides, she walked into the chamber and sat slowly against one wall, next to the supplies chest. She rested an elbow on the lid, looking for all the world as if she belonged there. With her free hand, she made a sweeping gesture at the opposite side of the room.

Donna looked back and forth between the aliens and the human woman. Hssii'shi's feathers had gone on-end, forming a fluffy crest from the crown of his head down to his tail, and he was twitching nervously, suddenly aware of the confines of the underground safe room. Narriss, meanwhile, was already moving to sit where Kai had directed. She felt a flash of annoyance. But the newcomer didn't seem to mean them any harm…

Donna lowered the sonic slowly, watching for her reaction, grabbed Hssii'shi by one bony arm and pulled him down beside her, so she was sitting between him and Narriss. Kai's face remained casually impassive.

She raised an eyebrow. "Well?" she asked. "What's this all about?"

Kai's gaze, formerly studying the avian to her left, flicked to her. Her eyes were startlingly dark, intensely intelligent, and held not a trace of kindness in them. Donna tried to disguise the shiver that ran down her spine. If she didn't mean them harm, then she certainly wasn't on their side either.

"I'm a bounty hunter," she began. "I–"

"Bounty hunter?" squeaked Hssii'shi.

"Yes," she growled, "a bounty hunter. And the less you talk, the less likely I am to kill you."

Hssii'shi's beak clicked shut. She nodded approvingly.

"Now," she continued. "Where are the other three targets? When did you get separated?"

Donna frowned. "Three?" She shook her head. "Hold on—targets?"

Kai eyed them with exasperation, and sighed. "Right. From the beginning, then. You have been chosen to participate in a competition called Seven's Trial. Six targets, all species, all ages, are captured and placed inside the Maze, then a number of bounty hunters chase them down and kill them. Different ones every year. Highest-scoring wins a credit prize, plus a whole lot of Tarik's viewers lining up to hire them."

The three of them were silent for a moment, processing this news. Kai had put it rather frankly, considering the subject matter.

"So…" Donna paused. "It's a hunting competition. We're being hunted down, for money." That might have been a bit too much for her to take in. For some reason, she found herself laughing. "Oh, the Doctor's gonna _love_ that when he finds out."

"And where are we?" asked Narriss; he seemed unaffected. That was nothing new.

Kai reached inside her jacket, and withdrew a small disc, the size of a coaster. When she turned it on, a holographic model of the Milky Way flickered to life, hanging in the space between them. She set the disc on the stone floor.

"I'm sure you're familiar with the Essak Nebula." She turned a dial, and the star-chart zoomed in on a tiny little section of one of the spiral arms, marked out with a dotted border. In the middle was a dense, splotchy cloud—the Nebula, Donna figured—and in a clear space near the eastern edge, a red dot flashed.

Kai pointed to it. "This is the Uythea system. It has one orbit: a tidally-locked planet named Frontier Seven. That's where we are."

Hssii'shi made a choked little noise, which Kai ignored. When Donna turned to him, his beak was wide open in a grin.

"Tidally locked: I was right!" he breathed, clearly fighting to contain his excitement. Despite how overwhelming the situation was, she couldn't help but smile back.

"Frontier Seven," echoed Narriss. His voice was not flat, not anymore, but almost pleased. His eyes glittered darkly, and for the first time Donna saw the barest hint of a smile on his face, exposing his multitude of long, needle-like teeth. She didn't much like the expression on him, she decided.

But it was over in an instant; when he looked back to Kai, his face was a mask once more. "Interesting," he droned.

As Donna studied his gaunt face, a horrible sense of foreboding came over her. She shifted away from him, just an inch, and he glanced in her direction. His liquid black eyes met hers, and she felt like a deer caught in the headlights. Or, perhaps more accurately, a lone spacewalker in the pull of a singularity. Something was wrong. She didn't know what—she didn't even know if it was Narriss giving her the feeling, or Kai, or just her own nerves—but she desperately wished that the Doctor was here right now.

"It isn't well-known. Tarik doesn't exactly advertise the location of his masterpiece," Kai scoffed.

"Who– who is Tarik?" Hssii'shi asked.

Her face twisted into a scornful smile. "Tarik Amir. He built this place. He runs the Trial every year."

A fleeting, half-formed thought crossed Donna's mind. "Does he pick the… the targets himself?"

"Yes." She didn't seem interested in why Donna was asking. "He'll be dead by now–" she smiled wickedly– "which means I'll be fifty million credits richer."

Donna swore. "Seriously? How much is that in Earth dollars?"

Kai's grin widened. "Fifty million. This is our territory. We use our currency." Then she was all business again; the shift was disconcerting. "You're worth five million each to me, as long as I can get you to my employer alive and in one piece. So as long as you don't interfere with me getting my bounty, I'll keep you alive. Are we understood?"

Donna pursed her lips. "Now hold on. What exactly does that mean?"

"It's very simple: I am here to maximize my profits. You're just my bonus. If any one of you becomes more trouble than you're worth, I shoot you on the spot."

Hssii'shi gulped. Donna just frowned.

Kai picked up the hologram projector, ejected a little card and inserted another into the side. A new image was beamed into the air: a gigantic maze, a familiar-looking entrance hall at one end, a circular cavern in the middle. The right-angle hallways they had been walking through were interrupted as they neared the centre by a large area of curved paths, surrounding the empty space in the middle.

"You've managed to wander quite far from the main exit." She pointed to a blinking dot. It was about halfway between the edge of the Maze and the start of the circular paths, closer to the entrance hall than the far end. Donna winced. They were quite far away.

"I'll be taking you to the centre. I have the codes to open that door, and this map is live. It seems Tarik set up an automatic rearrangement—which would be why I was nearly crushed by the walls on my way here—so the map will adjust accordingly each time the Maze changes." Kai switched off the hologram. "Now, we have to be fast. Tarik might have been sloppy with the security in his own house, but he was careful with his life. I was instructed to blow up the power generators and take down the heat shields around his house. It seems that the Maze has a separate power system, hence why you aren't dead, but I don't know whether our shields will fail too."

She stood up, dusting off her clothes. "We're leaving. Take your food and water, it's an hour's walk to get to the second floor. Down there the heat should remain bearable, even if the shields go."

Donna pulled herself up quickly, wincing at the stiffness in her legs. "No, wait. Hold on." Kai turned to her, and she swallowed at the hard look in her eyes. "Narriss can't walk for that long. It's too hot out there," she explained. "There must be another route."

Kai raised an eyebrow at Narriss. "Alright then."

In a flash of motion, she reached into her jacket and pulled out a small pistol, pointing it right at Narriss's head. There was a click as the safety was turned off, and he stumbled backwards in an attempt to get away, succeeding only in pressing himself against the wall.

"No!" Suddenly Donna was standing between them, one hand on Narriss's chest, the other motioning for Kai to put the gun down. "You can't!" she cried.

Kai's expression turned downright furious. "Out of the way. If he can't get to the centre, he's not worth the effort."

"Wait. Please, just–" Donna stepped closer to him, shielding as much of his body as she could. "Let us try," she urged. "You don't have to do anything, just let us take care of him. If he makes it, that's five million credits for you. And…" She grabbed Hssii'shi by the hand and he gave an alarmed squawk as she dragged him to her side. "You shoot Narriss, you're gonna have to shoot us. We're not going anywhere without him."

With a snort of disgust, Kai lowered the gun and tucked it back into her jacket. "Fine." She stormed up to Donna and grabbed her arm roughly, yanking her away from the others. "Don't know why you'd bother with them," she muttered, pulling her to the doors.

Donna jerked her arm out of her grasp. "What about the others?" she demanded. "The Doctor and Dakro. How're you gonna find them?"

Kai paused, undoing the latch. "Do you know where they are?"

"No."

"Then they aren't coming."

"What?" Donna shook her head. "We can't leave without the Doctor. No way."

"There's no way to find them," she said. "You three leave with me; that's your only shot. Believe me, the other hunters won't be nearly as patient with you. And don't think for a second I'm going to risk my life or my bounty to get you out."

Donna stood there, staring at her. She couldn't leave the Doctor in here. No way. But… she had made a promise to herself, to do whatever she could to keep Hssii'shi and Narriss safe. She'd sworn they would get out alive. What if the bounty hunter really was their only chance?

The exits needed access codes, Kai had said, and if she really had killed the person who was supposed to be running the Maze then no one else could open the doors. No one knew where they were; no one was coming for them. Meanwhile there were still other hunters in the Maze, trying to kill them.

But if they went along with Kai, only until they got to the centre, then maybe the Doctor would be waiting for them. And if he wasn't, they would just have to figure something else out. The hunter couldn't be a match for all three of them; maybe they could overpower her and take whatever she used to open the door. They could manage.

One thing was certain: they weren't getting anywhere useful without that map. So Donna shot a warning glance at Hssii'shi and Narriss, making sure Kai's back was turned, and then sighed loudly.

"Fine," she relented. "The three of us, then."

"Good." Kai pushed the doors up and out, and they fell open with a crash. She marched up the steps without a backwards glance. "Get your food," she called. "We've got a long walk."

Hssii'shi rushed to Donna's side. "Are we really doing this?" he breathed, shooting an anxious look at the doors. "We can't leave the others."

"No, of course we can't," Donna hissed. "Look, this is our best chance. We only have to play along until we find them, or until we get to the centre. Just–" She sighed. "Don't get shot. Worry about the rest later."

Hssii'shi nodded, his soft brown eyes open wide. "Okay."

"Hey." Donna put a hand on his shoulder, finding his down remarkably soft under her fingers. "It's gonna be fine."

His feathers rippled, slowly smoothing back down. "Promise?" he whispered.

"Course." She gave what she hoped was a reassuring smile, and hurried over to the half-unpacked chest. She started stuffing the food and water into the pockets of the Doctor's suit jacket—it seemed they really were, as he had claimed, bigger on the inside. Everything fit. That was a small relief.

At the bottom of the chest, she found a small package of bandages and a tube of some sort of salve. Those, she zipped up in one of her own coat pockets; she wanted to be able to find them quickly, if need be.

"Move it along," Kai shouted.

"Coming, coming," muttered Donna. She slung both coats over her arm and hurried up the staircase. Narriss and Hssii'shi came up on either side of her, squinting into the awful glare.

"Hope this works," said Hssii'shi.

"It won't," Narriss grumbled.

"Oh, for God's sake," Donna said, exasperated.

Kai withdrew the holographic map from her pocket. "Right. Let's go." And she walked off down the corridor.

Donna took a deep breath before following. _Get to the centre, get the Doctor, get out,_ she repeated to herself, over and over. _Get to the centre, get the Doctor, get out._

 _What could go wrong?_


	9. Chapter 9

The beam of Tarik's flashlight led the way as he walked purposefully down the dim corridors of the Maze, wondering for the first time why he had decided to build it quite so large.

"Four hours of walking," he groused, his voice echoing in the barren hallway. "Four hours of my life I'll never get back."

Granted, he had spent a sum total of two of those four hours resting, and had not set a particularly gruelling pace either, but that did nothing to negate his point. He was not some common labourer. He was an intellectual, and he felt no need to prove his physical abilities.

Frankly, walking around his house in the high gravity and dry heat was all the exercise he'd ever needed or desired. But as a result he was now all sweaty, despite the Maze being much cooler than his house, his feet and legs hurt, and he longed for the comfort of his sofa and a nice book. He wished he'd brought some food or water, too. Having decided early on that he wouldn't like to spend any more time in here than absolutely necessary—forty-five minutes in he had encountered one of his booby-trapped hallways, and a half hour later had been accosted by an Essian fox—he had plotted a direct course to the closest exit, and there was only one supply chest on the way. He drew the hologram projector from the pocket of his coatee and flicked it on; he glanced quickly over the route, noted the distance, noted how many one-by-one-meter stone blocks he passed each second of walking. _About one thousand five hundred seconds 'till the safe room,_ he calculated quickly. _Twenty-five minutes._

He groaned aloud. Twenty-five minutes might as well be an eternity. A boring eternity.

Tarik almost wished he hadn't turned off the security cameras; at least then he might be able to find a target or a hunter to watch. He'd had a decently fun time watching the events before he'd been forced in here. But the cameras did double-duty streaming footage of the Trial to every shadowport, seedy underworld pub and wealthy black marketeer in the Nebula, and he'd rather they didn't see him wandering around, trapped inside his own masterpiece. When it came to his public image, he was fastidious.

Lost in thought, Tarik didn't notice the noises until it was almost too late. A snarl echoed through the hallways, followed by a revolting tearing sound, and he froze in his tracks, his blood going cold. He swore silently. He hadn't counted on having to fight off carnivorous beasts when he got ready that morning, and, running through a mental inventory of all the animals he'd had imported for this Trial, he wasn't sure his little blaster pistol would be powerful enough for the job.

At least his boredom had disappeared into thin air, he reflected.

Right. First, he had to know what it was. Maybe he could sneak past it. As silently as he could, he crept along the corridor, resisting the urge to startle at every noise. It was hard to tell where the sounds were coming from, echoing as they were, and he looked around nervously every few steps.

Peering around a corner, into the hallway he intended to pass through, Tarik found the source. The entire width of the hall was occupied by a mass of beige and cream: the backside of a giant animal, several meters tall even when crouching down. Growls rumbled from somewhere under the fur, its long, ringed tail lashing back and forth above a pair of paws the size of manhole covers. He recognized it as a Telusian sabretooth, his heart sinking; it might be clumsy in the limited space, but there was no way he could get past it. _Low-gravity planets,_ he grumbled to himself. _There is no call for being that big._

The cat was eating something very loudly, and Tarik turned his attention away from the ripping, slurping noises in order to focus. He had no desire to be the new object of its ministrations, but he also didn't want to waste time taking a different route. He drew his pistol and aimed at the animal, trying to decide whether he could kill it from there if it showed its head, and reached the conclusion that he definitely was not a good enough shot. With a huff, he tucked it back into his coatee and retreated around the corner.

If he rearranged the Maze, he thought, the beast might be crushed between the walls, or at least scared off. But he was just as likely to get caught, and he would have to find a new path anyway. In a sudden burst of inspiration he pulled out his datapad. Not every function was working—he inwardly cursed Kai for frying his house—but he was still able to bring up a map, on which was highlighted a number of dots all throughout the Maze. Each represented a maintenance droid, complete with top-quality armour and power rifles. Most of the droids read as inactive, stored away in hidden compartments in the walls of the Maze, but he spotted one active pair on the second floor, not far away. They would have no trouble getting rid of the animal.

He used his comm to summon them remotely, and, with one more glance around the corner, settled down to wait.

* * *

"Can we… slow down," Donna panted. " _Please?_ "

"No time," Kai called back.

 _Easy for her to say,_ she thought, grumbling under her breath. The bounty hunter had put on her helmet to protect her from the heat, and at least one of her many layers had to be thermally regulated because she had set a punishing pace through the sun-baked halls of the Maze. Donna was sweating more than she'd ever sweat in her life, her shirt soaked through and her hair sticking to her shoulders, and she was horribly uncomfortable. This planet's gravity was higher than Earth's; she hadn't noticed much on the lower levels, but working so hard in the heat of the sun, even the weight of the Doctor's jacket on her arm was quickly becoming unbearable. _A few more minutes,_ she kept telling herself. _Just a few more minutes._

Hssii'shi and Narriss were lagging even further behind than she was. While they didn't seem to have trouble with the gravity, the heat continued to affect them disproportionately. Donna had thus far refused to take any water; it seemed to be the only thing keeping Narriss upright. The pale alien was no longer pale, all his exposed skin flushed red, and he'd begun using the wall as a crutch, keeping one hand out to lean against it as he walked. She worried he wouldn't make it, despite them being so close to where Kai claimed there was a staircase to take them back out of the sun.

She needn't have worried. They rounded a corner moments later and came face-to-face with a dead end, a large wooden door embedded in the wall. She might've cried from relief if she hadn't been so dehydrated. Hssii'shi giggled, almost deliriously, and broke into an awkward trot. Narriss followed with renewed enthusiasm, and she jogged after, feeling like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. The worst of it was over.

Together, Narriss and Hssii'shi heaved the door open, and all four of them hurried into the dark, blissfully cool space. Donna pulled the door closed behind them and felt her way to the closest stone wall, pressing her back against it and letting the cold seep through her skin. She sighed.

It was pitch black; she blinked, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. She could hear the others moving around her, rustling and panting as they settled down to rest, but couldn't make out more than shadowy blotches. Then Kai's holographic map of the Maze flickered to life, lighting her unmasked face an icy blue.

"C'mon," she ordered, jerking her head.

By the dim glow of the map, Donna could see Hssii'shi splayed out on the floor, his feathers mussed up and his chest heaving as he took gulps of the fresh air. Narriss was slumped in the corner, his head resting against the stone, eyes closed. He looked like a corpse, with his skin turned blue by the light.

"Hey. Narriss." Donna knelt next to him and put a hand on his shoulder. His eyes opened slowly. "How're you doing?"

"I am fine," he said, sitting up straight. His voice sounded weak to her ears.

Hssii'shi pulled himself up and scrambled over. "Here," he said, handing Narriss his container of water.

Narriss drank deeply before handing it back. Hssii'shi offered it to Donna, who hesitated.

"You have to," he insisted, taking her hand and pressing the canteen into it. She shot him a grateful smile and drank from the container; it was warm and probably contaminated with alien saliva, but right then it was the best thing she'd ever tasted.

He maneuvered himself to Narriss's other side and lifted his arm over his skinny shoulder. "Alright," he grunted. "Let's go."

Donna helped him lift Narriss off the floor. Once he was standing, he waved them off and straightened his robes, holding himself with as much dignity as he could. Kai was standing with her back to a staircase, holomap held in front of her, staring at them with her mouth set in an impatient grimace.

"Ready?" she asked, eyebrow raised.

Donna smirked coldly and marched past the hunter, pleading silently for whatever deity this planet had to send a rock or a large animal to stop her being so…

She couldn't find a good word, so she made a noise of frustration in her head.

* * *

They walked for another half-hour, Kai leading the way, before they came upon a safe room. Unavoidable, Kai told them, making it clear that she didn't care whether they got to rest, but she let them take a few minutes to eat and drink anyway. Donna raided the chest and found a large stash of the grey discs that the Doctor had identified as nutrient supplements, which she wasn't too keen on but had to admit that they would be more practical than fresh vegetables or (she shuddered) bugs. She passed out two new canteens of water—at least, she figured, no one wanted them dead of dehydration, except maybe Kai—and found another tube of salve at the bottom.

But the most notable thing they picked up from the safe room was a large blaster, with a long, thin barrel like that of an Earth rifle, and a strap for carrying. It had been resting against the side of the chest when they entered; Donna had to move it away gingerly in order to get at the food.

"Cheap," Kai remarked. "If he really must arm his prisoners, he could've at least bought some quality weapons. He's got the money."

"At least we have a weapon," said Narriss.

"No," Donna insisted, pausing in her packing. "No! We can't take a rifle with us. What do we need a gun for, anyway?"

"Well," Hssii'shi said hesitantly, "there are other bounty hunters in here. What if we come across one of them? Or a dangerous animal?"

Donna gave him a look that said he wasn't helping, and he shrank back with a shrug.

"Or the Beast," added Narriss, sounding quite pleased with himself for making such a compelling argument.

Kai snorted. "There's no Beast," she said. "I'd have thought you could at least figure that one out."

Narriss gave a haughty sniff. Apparently, the contempt was mutual.

It was one against three, and Donna figured it would be a losing battle. "Fine," she relented. "But G.I. Jane over there can carry it." Not like they were going to find someone to shoot at, anyways. And if they did, that someone would probably already be shooting at them. Hopefully. The Doctor might not totally approve, but he couldn't scold them if they never got out.

"I'm not carrying it," protested Kai, gesturing to the pistol in her hip holster and her backpack.

Narriss took the rifle, in the end, and they continued on their walk. Donna couldn't help eyeing him in the quiet moments; the gun looked much smaller than it was when compared to his height, and did nothing to soften the look of his bony joints and sharp teeth. In fact, he looked more like a mercenary than Kai, and she didn't like it.

* * *

"What exactly are you planning on doing with us after we get out?"

Hssii'shi had spoken, breaking their longest silent streak yet. He'd trotted up ahead a bit, despite Donna and Narriss's discouragements, to where Kai was walking apart from the group.

She gave him a look of faint annoyance, but answered anyway. "The door leads to a tunnel, which goes right under Tarik's mansion. I have a lightweight EMR suit. I'll go outside, call down my ship, take the pictures of his body and patch them into the vid-feed of the Trial. Then we'll drop you three off on a neutral world and you can comm for someone to pick you up. My employer will want to see you first, proof of life and all that."

Donna frowned. "Why would you broadcast pictures of his body?"

Kai shrugged. "Orders from above. And before you ask, no, I don't know who my employer is." She glanced at Hssii'shi. "Are you finished?"

Looking just a bit hurt, Hssii'shi slowed his pace to join back up with Donna and Narriss.

"Arse," muttered Donna, just loud enough for the hunter to hear.

He huffed a laugh, but the humour didn't reach his eyes. "This doesn't make sense," he whispered. "Who would pay fifty million credits to have this man killed?"

"I've no idea," she replied.

"And who would pay five million each for us?"

She shrugged.

Hssii'shi was silent for a moment. "Why us, Donna?" he asked softly.

Donna looked over; he was already staring up at her. There was a startling vulnerability in his eyes, and she found herself wanting very much to give him a decent answer. But she couldn't find one, so instead she took his four-taloned hand in hers and kept walking.

"You should be proud," murmured Narriss. "If you were not here, we would not have made it this far."

"You haven't seemed all that keen on getting anywhere, so far," she pointed out.

There was a beat as he drew himself up, adjusting the gun on his shoulders. "You are mistaken," he said quietly.

* * *

They walked in silence for several hundred meters before Donna called up to Kai, "What did you mean when you said you'd drop us on a neutral world?"

She glanced back. "Well, it's not like I'm going to leave you in enemy territory. You wouldn't last until my employer showed up. And I can't take them–" she jerked a thumb towards the two aliens– "into our territory, now can I? We're going to Planet K3SN. Uninhabited, unexplored; it doesn't even have a name. No one will try to kill any of you there."

Not much of that made sense to her. She shot a quizzical look at Hssii'shi, who blinked.

"The war?" he said, as if it were something she definitely should know about.

Donna remembered that the Doctor had mentioned something about a war, back in the entrance hall. "What about it?"

"I thought you were from Earth. How can you not know about the Essian War?"

"I've been away," she said indignantly. "Just… I don't know, start from the beginning."

Hssii'shi clicked his beak twice. "Right. Well, right now the Earth Empire is at war with the Essians. The natives of the Nebula, not just the species," he clarified. "Although I believe the planet Essak is leading the fight. Your people have been going further and further into the Nebula, looking for colony worlds and resources, but the native species here already have claims on many of the planets. I'm not from the Nebula, but I've heard it's gotten bad."

His voice had gone very quiet, as if he was nervous to talk about it. "Territory is split nearly down the middle at the moment. Kai is right: if you were spotted on a planet not allied with the Empire, you might be thought a militant. And if Narriss and I went to a human world, we could be imprisoned."

Donna had to take a moment to process this. She wished the Doctor were there, to help her make sense of it; it was like the Ood Sphere all over again. Only this time, she got the feeling there wasn't much they could do to stop the conflict. Wars, the Doctor had told her, were often no-meddling-allowed affairs. Once again, the human race would have to be left to blunder its way through interspecies relations.

Even though she had no affiliation with this Earth Empire, she couldn't help feeling a bit disappointed.

"Oh," was all she could think to say.

"Yeah," agreed Hssii'shi.

* * *

"We're here."

Kai stopped outside a slim gap in the wall at the end of the corridor, and turned to face the group. "It's darker in this section. There are lots of places to lose your footing, fall off a ledge. Keep close to me. Got it?"

Hssii'shi nodded mutely, and Narriss hummed in acknowledgement. Donna frowned.

"C'mon." The hunter drew the holomap from her pocket, flicked it on, and disappeared through the gap.

Donna stepped into the next hallway. Right away, a chill came over her; the torchlight faded away, and the air took on a damp smell, more like a cave than an artificial construction. The hall was long, skinny, and ever so slightly curved, stretching out in both directions, and a number of similar breaks in the inner wall allowed light to trickle through from the next rings of the Maze. She thought the ceiling might be a bit higher here, but it was hard to tell in the gloom.

Kai paused to double check the map, and started off to the left. Donna ushered Hssii'shi ahead of her and glanced back to make sure Narriss was coming before following the bounty hunter, heeding her advice and treading lightly in case of unseen obstacles. And indeed, they only made it a few meters before her foot nearly caught on a series of small steps, and they began climbing slowly from the level of the second floor. It was quite the change after hours of walking in the outer areas, and she got the feeling she wouldn't like this part very much.

They walked on and on through the outermost ring, as the ground alternated between staircases of varying steepness, sloping ramps and flat ground, seemingly at random. The darkness made it quite disconcerting. Kai had set a gruelling pace, and Donna was once more beginning to feel the effects of the higher gravity, her limbs growing heavy and her heart rate picking up with the exertion. The loss of the torches had dropped the temperature even further, however, and the cold stopped her feeling too tired.

As they went, Donna made a habit of glancing through the gaps in the inner wall. Most led to the same: narrow halls with minimal lighting. In some, dim light seemed to be creeping down from a source far above, and she thought that perhaps the walls were really more like partitions, sectioning off bits of a much larger, continuous room. But a few seemed to drop off into nothingness, no sign of a floor extending past the breaks. There were odder things, as well: doorways that seemed to have been interrupted, like an elevator trapped halfway between floors, extending from above the ceiling or below the ground; stairs that bisected the corridor, so that one half went upwards and the other down; tiny gaps in the walls, too, little more than crawlspaces that did not seem to join with the adjacent hallway but led into cramped tunnels heading directly towards the centre. Donna didn't really want to know what might be waiting in those.

As it turned out, she didn't get a say.

"Alright," said Kai, climbing the final step of a long and painful stretch of stairs. They had made it to a small flat area—by the light of the hologram, Donna could see that a few meters ahead lay another staircase, this one going back down—and the hunter was standing next to a hole no more than a meter high and wide. "I'll take the lead. Narriss, bring up the back. Make sure that rifle doesn't catch on the rocks."

Donna wrinkled her nose. "Do we have to?"

"This is by far the fastest way to the centre," said Kai, more than a little impatiently. "Your lives could depend on our speed. My bounty depends on it. Do you understand how close we are?"

Crouching down, she got on her hands and knees and started crawling. Donna, wincing the whole way in anticipation of running directly into a large spider, went next, and Hssii'shi behind her, struggling to move in a way he clearly wasn't designed to. Narriss took the gun off his back, gripping it in one hand, before folding his gangly body into the tunnel. He barely fit, and Donna was unnerved by the sound of the rifle scraping and skittering across the stone bricks every time he moved his hand forwards. The light wavered ahead of her, jerking with Kai's motions. It was almost dizzying, and Donna could feel herself getting more and more claustrophobic as they went on. What if the Maze moved now, she thought, and they were crushed to death?

She breathed a sigh of relief when a tiny speck of golden light became visible at the far end, several minutes later. It took another ten to reach it, by which point her hands were trembling with anxiety. They would have been all sweaty, but every movement brought them in contact with a fresh deposit of dust and grime; when they finally climbed out, she was covered in what seemed to be rock particulate. She was only glad she hadn't crawled through a spider web. Oh, she hated tunnels.

"Watch your step," warned Kai, as Donna extracted herself and brushed off her clothes.

"For wha– woah," she breathed, abandoning the question as soon as she straightened up.

They were on a ledge overlooking an enormous cavern, constructed not of clean-cut bricks like the hallways but of rough, natural stone. They were so high up that Donna could nearly touch the ceiling, though it sloped even higher in the middle. Great veins of golden ore snaked through the dark rock, glittering in the light of the hundreds of torches placed along the sides of the cavern. She was reminded of the grandeur of the entrance hall, multiplied tenfold and with an added touch of severity, probably due to the fact that she now knew the true nature of the place. It was like standing partway up a cliff face; she felt as though she would tumble off at any moment.

Below them, the ledge dropped off in a sheer wall for several meters before coming to another ledge, which seemed to be the ceiling of the hallway below. Further towards the centre, many of the corridors were roofless, open to the cavern, and the walls got shorter as they progressed until they matched approximately the height of one storey. She could see clear across the massive space, to the upper levels all the way around the cavern, where the convoluted patterns of halls and ledges and stairs were repeated. If not for the taller walls blocking part of the view from her spot on the ledge, she could have traced a path to the empty area in the centre.

"There it is," murmured Kai. Her voice echoed faintly in the vast open space.

"How long 'till we get there?" Donna asked.

"Depends on how fast you can move."

With a wave at the others she started off along the ledge. Donna followed, brushing her right hand against the wall to steady herself as she looked out over the drop, unwilling to stray any closer to the edge. The aliens trailed close behind her, equally cautious, and more than once she felt Hssii'shi's small hand come to rest on her arm. They worked their way nearly a hundred meters along the wide curve before the ledge dropped off abruptly; she didn't want to look over the end, but Hssii'shi crept close enough to see and announced that below was another hallway, presumably leading from the third floor. Donna wondered how the architect could have possibly designed such an intricate structure.

Kai went to the other edge and knelt, looking towards the distant centre. To the others' surprise, she sat down, dangling her legs into open air, and braced her hands on the edge as she prepared to jump.

"What are you doing?" squeaked Hssii'shi.

"It's only a few meters," she explained. "You'll land on the wall, and from there we can walk on top of the partitions almost all the way to the centre."

She pushed herself off without further ado. Donna hurried forwards in time to see her land hard and roll into a kneeling position, then stand and dust herself off.

"You. Bird," she called, pointing to Hssii'shi. "Let's go."

"Go on," encouraged Donna, at his nervous look, though she was no surer than him that this would end well.

He gulped, fluffed up his feathers, and stepped up to the edge. Rather than sit, he chose to crouch down and hop off, his arms flailing a little like he was trying instinctively to fly. He landed smoothly on both feet, his lesser body mass proving useful, and bounded out of the way.

Kai waved Narriss down next, and he lowered himself slowly off the ledge, hanging on to the lip with his unnervingly long fingers. (Donna realized very suddenly that he reminded her just a bit of E.T.) By the time he had fully extended his body, he only had a meter or so to fall before he reached the next ledge.

Finally, Donna walked over and sat carefully on the edge. Suddenly, the drop looked a lot higher and the top of the wall a lot thinner. She felt a twinge of apprehension, and wondered what it might be like to break her ankle. Or her leg. Or everything.

Well, if Kai could do it…

Taking a deep breath, she pushed herself off the ledge, her stomach leaping into her throat as she fell. She noted briefly that she was falling quite a bit faster than she should have, before hitting the ground with a bone-rattling jolt and sprawling forwards onto her hands rather ungracefully. She groaned and rolled onto her back, an ache spreading through her feet and wrists.

Hssii'shi appeared above her. "Are you alright?"

"Yes," she huffed, pulling herself up. She winced, shaking out her limbs, before making an attempt to brush the dirt off her clothes.

"C'mon, then," Kai called back, already walking along the wall.

"Hey, wait!" shouted Donna, jogging after her. She slowed when she glanced over the edge and realized that it was an even higher drop down into the corridors, and there was nothing to stop her falling if she tripped, which wasn't unlikely. "Why did I have to go last?" she asked.

"Because," said Kai, "you were the most likely to break something, and I didn't want you wasting time by blocking the way."

She blinked, indignant. "Bloody hell," she muttered.

As they wove their way along the tops of the walls, Donna found herself growing excited. She could see the gap in the middle of the tangle of hallways where the exit was waiting for them, and she couldn't wait to finally, _finally_ get out. Their path was frustratingly indirect—they spent more time walking around the circle than towards the centre, and often the walls only bridged one corridor at a time—but they made fast progress now that the ground was flat and the end in sight. There were no obstacles to get in their way, though they did find one wall that had large blades hidden between the bricks, waiting to slam down on anyone walking through the hallway, and a juncture that seemed to be full of rodents. The only damper on her mood was the knowledge that the Doctor was nowhere to be seen.

It hadn't seemed quite real back in the safe room on the third floor, but now Donna was forced to consider what she was going to do if they got to the exit and the other two weren't there. She knew what the Doctor was capable of, but she couldn't think of a way he might have found his way through the Maze without assistance. She also couldn't think of how to stop Kai from leaving without him. Briefly, she had wondered about using Narriss's gun—not to actually shoot her, just to threaten her—but none of them were skilled with firearms and the hunter would surely call their bluff. Besides, she had already proven that she was much more willing to kill them than they could possibly be to kill her.

Perhaps they could allow themselves to be led out, and then check again after Kai was done doing whatever bounty hunters do. Donna was willing to bet she wouldn't kill them after spending so much time getting them out, which meant she had no way of forcing them onto her ship. Unless she knocked them out.

On second thought, she could probably do that. If they left the Maze, it was doubtful they'd ever get back in. Faced with the imminent threat of never finding the Doctor again, Donna decided simplest would be best. If they refused to leave, Kai couldn't drag them all out.

With this plan cemented in her mind, Donna clambered down a series of uncomfortably large steps that nearly went down to ground level, turned left after the bounty hunter, scrambled up a wall almost as tall as her, and found herself standing on the edge of an empty ring of stone. Her heart skipped a beat. In the middle of the gap, the very centre of the Maze, was a circular pattern of darker stone bricks. It had to be the exit.

They had actually made it.

Kai swung herself down from the top of the wall and landed gracefully on the ground. The others followed, spreading out to survey the empty space. Four gaps were spaced evenly around the curved wall, leading into the Maze. Most of the vast cavern was blocked from view, but the golden-striped ceiling still glittered in the dim light; it seemed very far away from down there.

Paying her surroundings no mind, the bounty hunter walked briskly over to a spot on the wall and slid her backpack off her shoulder. Out of it she pulled a tablet-like device; with a few taps, a panel in the stone slid open, exposing a small bank of plugs and switches. Kai took a little card out of the tablet and inserted it into one of the slots. There was a loud _clunk_ from the direction of the circle, like a giant deadbolt sliding out of place, and she returned her attention to the computer.

"What's all that for?" asked Hssii'shi, who had tired of looking around and come to stand by her side. Narriss drifted over beside them.

"Two-factor authentication," she said absently. "He was a tricky bastard. And… alright!" She sounded happier than Donna had ever heard her, and she hurried to the middle of the room with renewed vigour. "Everyone on the dais."

Donna took a deep breath, realizing that it was now or never. She grabbed Hssii'shi by the hand. "We're not leaving," she stated, as sternly as she could.

Kai turned to face the trio and raised an eyebrow.

"We won't go without the Doctor and Dakro," she said. "We're waiting for them right here. When they come, then we can leave."

When she looked to Hssii'shi for confirmation, he gaped at her for a moment before puffing out his chest, setting his beak and nodding. "We're staying," he told Kai.

Then something strange happened. The hunter's expression, dripping with contempt, morphed into one of shock. Donna frowned, wondering for a split second whether their ultimatum had worked better than she thought. Kai took a step back, her hand moving subconsciously towards her holster.

"Do not do that."

The voice came from just behind her. Donna whipped around, and froze; Narriss was standing there, the rifle off his back and in his hands and aimed straight at the bounty hunter.

"Easy," said Kai, raising her hands slowly. She knew she couldn't outdraw him now.

"Narriss," hissed Donna, "what are you _doing?_ "

"It is like you said." Somehow, despite the excitement he was creating, his voice still managed to sound droning. "We cannot leave. We must fulfil our duty." He flicked his thumb over a small switch, and there was an ominous click.

Donna felt a chill run down her spine. Something in his eyes, in his tone, the neutral chill with which he had spoken unnerved her. She pulled Hssii'shi behind her and backed away from him.

"Put that down, Narriss," she ordered, regretting the way her voice shook ever so slightly. "What do you mean, 'fulfil our duty'?"

Narriss turned his head to her, slowly. His thin, sallow lips peeled back from his teeth, baring the needle points in a horrible grin.

"Do not worry," he said. "You will understand."

He turned back to Kai, raised the gun to her head, and pulled the trigger.


	10. Chapter 10

The Doctor woke to a dull, itchy pain settled in every one of his frayed nerve endings, and groaned. _Not again,_ he thought, exasperated, as an ache started up in his temples. Gritting his teeth, he braced one hand against the lumpy stone floor and pushed himself up into a sitting position; he went to lean against the wall at his back and gasped as another kind of pain entirely flared over his right shoulder. Instead he chose to sit forward, elbows on his knees and head in his hands until he could get it to stop hurting.

He looked up, rubbing a hand over his mouth, to see Dakro sitting against the wall across from him, glaring.

"Morning," he mumbled. He tried to brush his hair out of his face and hissed as fresh pain stabbed through his shoulder.

"Don't do that," she ordered.

The Doctor tried to crane his neck to see what was wrong with him. "What happened?" he asked groggily.

"You got yourself shot," she said. "Because you're an idiot."

"Right," he grunted. Now he remembered. "Doesn't feel like I was shot," he remarked. "I mean, it's been a while, but…"

"Stun bolt." She pursed her lips. "I suppose you're a lucky idiot."

"Well, see, that's the best combination." Wincing, he climbed unsteadily to his feet and exclaimed, "Blimey, that's a strong stun!"

Dakro nodded stiffly, and stood along with him. "I couldn't read your watch, but you were out for a long time."

"Really? How– what?" he yelped, staring at the watch. "Two hours? It's been _two hours?_ "

"Sounds about right."

"But– but we can't have wasted two hours!"

"Well, we did, so you can shut up about it now."

"Why didn't you wake me?!"

"I couldn't," she snapped, her eyes flashing with real anger. Just for a second, though; her expression smoothed over again in the blink of an eye. "Is your back alright?" she asked grudgingly.

The Doctor frowned, feeling a bit whiplashed. "Ah, it's not so bad." The tingly sensation was starting to fade, but his shoulder was stiff and aching.

She strode over to where he was standing and peered at his back. "Your shirt's all charred," she said.

"Oh, but I like this shirt," he whinged, "it's a good shirt!"

"Can you get it off? I've seen people get burned pretty badly from weapons like that."

He wasn't sure what she intended to do if he was indeed badly wounded, because they had no medical supplies and barely any water, but he worked at unbuttoning the top few buttons of his oxford anyways. Dakro helped him push it down past his shoulder, causing him to wince with each brush of fabric against his skin.

He heard her sigh quietly in what he hoped was relief when she got a look at the area where the stun bolt had hit. "Bloody lucky, you are," she muttered. "Minor burns only. There's a bit of blistering, it'll get infected if it isn't treated properly. But for now it isn't dangerous."

"Ah, lovely," he said. He attempted to flex his shoulder and had to bite his lip to stifle a gasp; not dangerous, but still painful, the skin tight and inflexible and the muscle knotted from the shock. It would begin to heal on its own pretty quickly. "No nerve damage, no bleeding, not going into shock, body temperature and blood pressure normal. I'm in tip-top shape!"

"Shot point-blank and you're hardly injured. I wish I could do that," she remarked, carefully fixing his shirt.

"That's me," he said cheerily. "Thick skin."

She snorted.

"What?" he asked, affronted.

"Nothing's happened," she said, changing the subject. "Since you've been asleep, I mean. And I'd love to hear your new plan, since you ruined the last one so completely."

The Doctor winced. "Right. Well…"

Dakro's expression darkened as he hummed and hawed for several long moments. "You don't have a plan," she stated. "That was your last one."

"Nah, course not!" he said dismissively. "Just need a moment to refine it, is all."

She crossed her arms tightly over her chest, averting her gaze.

"C'mon, just give me a mo'!"

"I thought they'd killed you," she muttered. "I couldn't wake you up, I thought…"

He sobered, dropping the pretense. "Oh," he said.

"Yeah." She sniffed, still staring resolutely at the floor.

Suddenly uneasy, the Doctor took a careful step closer. "I wouldn't have died," he offered. "I knew they wouldn't be authorized to kill…" He trailed off; he could see that his explanation was only making her more upset. He didn't miss the brief tremble of her lower lip as he fell silent, though she quickly rubbed a hand over her mouth to hide it.

"I thought I'd never get out," she said roughly. "If you'd gotten yourself killed, what was I to do?"

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't think–"

"No," Dakro spat. "You didn't. I thought I'd just have to sit there until something came along to put me out of my misery. Why is your bloody breathing so bloody slow, by the way? And who needs two hearts? You know, you're the only expert here on Time Lord biology. What did you expect me to do, Doctor? How–" She broke off, turning half away from him, and wiped furiously at her eyes.

The Doctor knew that she wasn't really mad at him for getting shot; she was just scared. Scared of being left alone to await her death, be it slow and painful or quick and violent. Suddenly he felt rather angry with himself. In his haste to get to the centre and find Donna and the others—a plan, he reminded himself, that was farfetched at best—he'd sort of overlooked the fact that Dakro didn't face mortal danger for a living. It was easy to forget, what with her sharp tongue and stubbornness and general hostility, but it was only natural that she would be afraid.

He moved a bit closer and hesitantly reached out to place a hand on her arm, encouraging her to face him. She complied, after a moment, and he gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "We will get out. We'll get everyone out. None of us are dying in here, Dakro, that I swear."

The firm, cold promise in his voice was enough to get her to glance up at him, and she exhaled shakily, nodding. "Okay," she mumbled.

"There you go," he smiled. "See, it's not that bad in here, is it?"

She snorted. "Sure. Whatever you say."

He let his hand fall from her shoulder and spun around, walking around in a circle with his gaze cast upwards at the ceiling. "So," he murmured, almost to himself, "how exactly are we g–"

"Doctor, shut up," Dakro said suddenly, cutting him off.

He was about to protest, but he stopped with his mouth half-open. Her eyes were unfocused, her brow furrowed; she leaned slightly to the right, as if listening intently for something down the hallway.

 _Oh, no, not again._

His hearing was pretty good but, he had to admit, not as good as hers. He couldn't hear a thing for several tense moments; then a quiet, rhythmic clanking reached his ears, a clanking that was definitely not animal in nature. _Well, if it isn't an animal…_

"I think we'd best get back," he said quietly, guiding Dakro to the very end of the hallway. They pressed themselves into the corner, half-hidden in shadow, and waited.

Dakro sniffed. "You need a shower."

The Doctor did a double-take. "Not the problem right now!" he hissed, incredulous.

"Well, it's true."

"Well, maybe I'll take one next time I'm not being hunted for sport!"

She shushed him.

He opened his mouth to give an indignant reply, but shut it again when he realized that the clanking noise had gotten louder. They waited in terse silence as the steps—yes, they were definitely steps, he could hear them clearly now—grew closer. He felt her hold her breath as the source appeared around the corner.

Two sources: the armed droids, walking in step. For a split second he was worried—they were back to finish them off, they were cornered, there was nowhere to hide or run—but the worry faded as the mechanical cleanup crew walked right past their corridor. If their presence had been detected, the droids gave no sign of it. Though Dakro still looked to be in fight-or-flight mode, the Doctor's hearts leapt.

He turned to her as soon as they passed, grinning widely, his eyes alight with excitement.

"What?" she whispered.

"We've got ourselves one more chance," he said. "C'mon! We're not losing them again!"

He spun on his heel and strode off down the corridor, pausing to peer around the corner to make sure the droids hadn't changed their minds about going after them—again—before hurrying off. They had set a fast pace, walking about a hundred feet ahead. Dakro jogged to catch up to him, and he could feel her glare on his back.

"If you're gonna go bother them again," she threatened, "I will shoot you myself."

"Nah, don't worry," he said. He kept his voice quiet on instinct, even though the droids would certainly know they were there by now. "We're just going to follow them. As long as we don't antagonize them, I don't think they'll bother with us."

"One of us was never in danger of doing that." She shot him a pointed look. "But how do you know they'll go somewhere useful?"

"Well…" The Doctor touched the tip of his tongue to his teeth in thought. "Which way did they leave?"

"To the left."

"And they've come from the left, which means they doubled back. Which means they've been called somewhere, for some reason. That's got to be better than waiting here, right?"

She sighed. "Suppose."

He cracked a smile, and held out a hand. "Right then! _Allons-y!_ "

* * *

The bounty hunter didn't have time for so much as a shout before the shot went off, sending her sprawling, limp, onto her back. Donna slapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a scream. Hssii'shi stumbled backwards, nearly tripping over his feet in his shock, but she was frozen to the spot, her eyes glued to Kai's splayed form. She waited for her to roll over or twitch or groan with pain. Anything, really. Against all common sense, she wanted to rush over and check for signs of life—that was the Doctor's fault, she supposed. But Narriss, still standing between her and the hunter, the rifle in his hands, stopped her.

With great effort, she wrenched her gaze away from the body and up to the alien. As she watched, he wandered closer and prodded Kai with one foot. When she didn't move—now Donna was forced to concede that there was no hope of her surviving, because there was a faint curl of smoke rising from her forehead—he gave a self-satisfied nod and moved around to the other side of the room. He propped the gun against the wall and walked back over to the centre, where he knelt next to Kai's body without a glance at the two onlookers.

He had already flipped the hunter onto her stomach and removed the little backpack slung over her shoulder by the time Donna managed to get her voice back.

"Narriss, what the–"

Narriss held up a hand, cutting her off; she was too shaken to speak over him.

"Do not ask questions to which you will not accept the answers," he said absently, working the zipper open with clumsy fingers and starting to root around inside. He found the datapad she'd used to access the control panel and, with shocking ease, bent it in half, sending sparks and bits of glass flying. Next he found a hunting knife, which he tucked under his belt; then a small pistol, which he unloaded and cast aside. He tossed the power cartridge into the halls of the Maze.

Donna shook her head, bewildered. "We were going to get out," she whispered. Stronger, she cried, "We could've left! She was about to open the door! What… what the flippin' hell were you _thinking?!_ "

Narriss snorted derisively, and threw away the holoprojector that Kai had used as a map. "Offworlders," he hissed, baring his horrible long teeth. "You never listen. You never–" he grunted as he bent a long metal baton over his knee– " _understand_. I warned you, you and Kai and that Doctor of yours: we cannot leave this place!"

Her hands had begun to tremble, she realized, as she backed away from the alien and bundled Hssii'shi close to her side. "Narriss," she said, wishing her voice sounded as firm as she intended it to, "just stop. Okay? It's just a game, a competition, we can all still get out of here. The Doctor–"

"ENOUGH!" he roared, his head snapping up to glare at them. His glossy black eyes seemed to spark in the light of the torches. "I have had enough of you. If you have been ignorant enough to believe this bounty hunter's lies, then that is your mistake."

Donna hesitated. "What d'you mean?" she asked cautiously.

"You cannot honestly think she came here to rescue us," he said, scorn dripping from his words. "She is the Deceiver, come to test our resolve." He let out a rumbling laugh. "She has lied! The Maze is real, this is no game. And you are fortunate that I was present to stop her." Taking a small, pill-shaped device from a little pocket on the outside of the pack, he rolled it between his fingers thoughtfully. "Worry not," he said, his tone markedly softer. "Through our sacrifice, the planet will live on." Then he crushed the device between his teeth, and discarded it with the empty pistol.

Donna glanced at Hssii'shi, who was looking at her with the exact same mixture of confusion and terror that she felt inside. For a second, she actually considered what he'd said; maybe they had been wrong to take Kai at her word. She was—had been—a bounty hunter, after all. Supposedly. And frankly, the very concept of a themed hunting competition featuring sentient beings was a bit ridiculous.

Suddenly, Donna wasn't quite sure which version of the story to believe. So, against most of her better judgement, she decided to gather more information.

"What'll happen if we do leave?" she asked, hoping she sounded braver than she felt.

Narriss glanced up before returning to his search, supposedly looking for anything that could be used to open the door. "The Beast demands that it be presented with ritual sacrifices, each year at the point of _vwrithu_ —when Ventos' orbit reaches the furthest point from the sun." He tossed aside a folded square of bright orange fabric, and retrieved a spare power cartridge, which he threw over the wall behind him. "If it does not receive them, it will leave the Maze and take the inhabitants of the planet in their stead. Thus, each solar cycle a number of people are chosen to go to the Maze and offer themselves to keep the Beast in its prison."

So, it was some sort of religious thing? Donna thought that was what he was getting at. Unless it wasn't. She'd seen a whole lot of strange things, travelling with the Doctor; perhaps they really had been offered up as sacrifices to save the world. Maybe there was a Beast.

Maybe, after all of this, they really couldn't leave.

"Hold on," she said, frowning. "What's this about Ventos? Where have I heard that before?"

"When we all met," Hssii'shi murmured, speaking up for the first time. He looked scared out of his wits, his feathers puffed and doe-like eyes wide, but he didn't move from her side. "He said he's from Ventos. But I've never heard of it," he added, almost inaudible.

Donna turned to Narriss. "So all this happens on Ventos? The Beast and the Maze, that's where they are?"

He nodded. "Ventos is the homeworld of my people."

"Well, then we're fine!" she laughed. "We're on Frontier Seven, remember?" When his expression didn't change, her heart sank. "Remember?" she repeated feebly.

"We are on Ventos," said Narriss. "The hunter lied."

Donna kicked herself for getting hopeful so quickly. Her head was near spinning, now; she was less sure than ever what was going on, what they should do. Nothing made sense anymore, not Kai's story, not Narriss's, and somehow she had to make a decision. She felt just as lost as she had in those first moments in the entrance hall. She was tired and hungry and exhausted, and she wanted more than anything for the Doctor to show up and sort it all out.

The thought made tears spring up in her eyes. She didn't know whether he would show. She didn't know if she'd ever see him again. Was he even still alive? Her family, her friends… she'd never get to say goodbye to them, they'd never know what had happened to her. She'd kept those thoughts under control for the last– well, she didn't even know how long it had been, but she couldn't do it anymore.

The tears started to fall freely down her face as she watched Narriss sift through Kai's various pockets. He hadn't told a single lie, she was sure of that much; he was positive that he was going to save his planet by getting them all killed. Finally, she understood the cold, dispassionate resolve that she'd always assumed was nothing more than a quirk of his species. He'd known all along that they would die. And he was right: he had warned them. Whether he was right or wrong about this Beast, he had told them they would never leave.

 _Oh, God…_ she thought, biting her lip to hold back a sob. _I don't want to die here!_

Then Narriss pulled something out of one of the inner pockets of her jacket that caught her eye.

"Wait!" she exclaimed, hastily wiping at her cheeks. "What is that?"

Narriss, apparently (correctly) assuming she was no threat to him, passed her the little object. It was some sort of stopwatch, Donna realized, turning it over in her hands. It was round and smooth, like a small hockey puck, lacking any buttons, with numbers displayed in blue in the middle of the face. And it was counting down.

"Hey," she said, worry creeping into her tone. "What happens in… thirty-three minutes?"

Before either alien could answer, there came another sound, echoing in the endless hallways. At first Donna figured she'd misheard; oh, how comforting it would've been if she had. But the noise came again, louder now and unmistakably a deep, guttural growl. They all fell silent at once, just in time to catch the sound of claws scraping on stone. Her blood turned to ice. Hssii'shi whimpered, looking around frantically for the source.

As she joined him in his efforts—it could be anywhere, she realized, the way the cavern bounced sound around—her gaze met Narriss's. He was staring at them, grinning his awful, jagged grin, his eyes positively sparkling.

"Reckoning," he murmured.

* * *

"Wait… stop!" Dakro ordered.

"Stop what?" asked the Doctor.

"Stop walking!"

"Oh." He complied, backing away from the corner he was just about to turn, and lowered his voice. "What is it?"

"They're not moving," she whispered. "And there's something else…"

One of her ears twitched as she strained to listen. The Doctor, meanwhile, edged closer to the corner, trying to get a look; slowly, he peered out into the next hallway, then pulled back abruptly, pressing himself against the wall. The rough stone dug into his shoulder, making him wince—the walk had given his injury a chance to start healing, but it would definitely need treatment. He held a finger to his lips, telling Dakro to be quiet.

"What? What's there?" she mouthed.

"There's a person," he breathed. "Talking to the droids."

She blinked. "Is it one of the others?"

"No."

"Then who?"

He shrugged.

"A bounty hunter?" Her eyes flicked to the hallway, even though she couldn't see what was in it.

"Perhaps."

She opened her mouth to interrogate him further, but before she could speak there came a thunderous roar, shaking the stone under their feet and making her pull back, hands over her ears. It was followed immediately after by the sound of blasterfire; the roar gave way to a howl of pain, great footsteps sending trembles through the floor as whatever it was tried to get away. The firing didn't let up until the cries and pounding ceased, several long moments later. There was a deep, mournful keening, one more shot, and then silence.

The Doctor listened with his jaw clenched, gaze fixed on the ground as he struggled to control the anger twisting at his stomach. He should have known that the droids couldn't be up to anything good; he should have interrupted when he saw them getting their new orders. At the very least, he and Dakro hadn't followed them all this way to find the body of one of the other captives. All the more reason to end this now, he figured.

In the quiet, there came a call, echoing from around the corner:

"You can come out now. I know you're there."

Dakro and the Doctor shared a silent, wide-eyed glance. He gave a hopeful shrug; she shook her head adamantly and he frowned, jerking his head in a _come on!_ gesture.

"I'm quite good at technology, you see," the voice said, "and it's very easy to install a full sensor suite into a base model android."

"Oh, you're telling me!" exclaimed the Doctor, shoving his hands in his trouser pockets, ignoring the ache in his shoulder and strolling around the corner, despite Dakro's attempts to pull him back. "Too easy, if you ask me, where's the challenge? Make 'em four- or five-dimensional, though, that's a different story."

As he walked leisurely down the hall, he got his first good look at the man who controlled the droids. He was rather short—shorter than both he and Dakro, not as short as Donna—but the imperious way he held himself made him seem taller than he was. He was very pale for a human, the Doctor thought, his skin smooth and spotless and his blond hair slicked neatly back; it was clear that he had not been doing any hard labour lately. Perhaps ever. His outfit was… daring, to say the least, consisting of an Old Earth military style jacket with long coattails, tight-fitting white pants, and lace-up boots which, judging by the slightly too tall heel, were designed for fashion more than function. He'd topped the whole thing off with a bulky utility belt, thoroughly ruining the illusion of prestige. The Doctor guessed this was not a planned addition. He wrinkled his nose.

"I must admit, the temporal sciences have always been a bit above me." The man smiled in a way that suggested that might not be entirely true, and held out a hand. "Tarik."

The Doctor glanced down, but didn't shake it. "The Doctor."

His smile grew. "Oh, I am aware." He clasped his hands behind his back and turned on his heel, sauntering further down the hall.

Dakro, meanwhile, had stepped warily out from around the corner. "Who are you?" she asked, keeping her distance; evidently, she didn't want a repeat of their encounter with the Hazrian.

"I told you," he said, without turning.

"No–" She frowned, frustrated. "Are you a bounty hunter?"

That made him turn, and sharply. "Do I look like a bounty hunter?" he snapped.

"A bit," she fired back, approaching the Doctor as she grew bolder. "So what are you, then? You're not a prisoner. Are you maintenance staff?" She smirked. "A janitor?"

"Watch your mouth," he said stiffly. He continued on his way. "I'll not have my targets talking to me in that manner."

She paused. "Your targets, what d'you mean?"

"You own the Maze," the Doctor said quietly, his hearts sinking as his suspicions were confirmed. "You run the competition."

Dakro glanced at him briefly, then again, numb disbelief in her eyes. "What?" she whispered.

"I'm right, aren't I?" he called, stalking towards the human man with fire in his eyes. "Decided to get your hands dirty this time round, have you? Or do you always come have a little peek at how your _game_ is coming along?"

"Make no mistake, if I had any choice at all, I would not be in here." Tarik rounded a corner and the Doctor followed, Dakro just behind him. The sight that greeted them stopped them both in their tracks: the body of a massive animal was slumped against one wall, taking up most of the width of the corridor. It resembled a sabretooth tiger, with long tusks that protruded beyond its lower jaw and giant, hook-like claws poking out of its padded paws. Intricate cream and tan markings covered its face and body, but its fur had turned dark and crisp where the blaster bolts had found their mark. The scent of singed hair and burnt flesh hung in the air, and Dakro lifted the collar of her jacket to cover her nose.

The Doctor didn't recognize the animal; he wondered to what lengths the gamemaster had gone to get his hands on this beautiful creature, only to shoot it down on a whim. The arawni, too, and the Hazrian bounty hunter, and the Essa woman who had died before the Trial even started… The Doctor didn't fancy himself as someone who angered easily, but this careless disregard for life in any and all of its forms, sentient or not, human or not, made him furious beyond words. Frustrated, too, knowing that there was nothing he could say to this man to make him understand. As he watched Tarik send the droids off with a wave of his hand, he wondered how a person could divorce himself so completely from reality.

When he glanced at Dakro, he saw that same disgust and sorrow in her gaze.

"He put us in here," she said, too quiet for Tarik to hear. Her voice was steady and dangerously cold. "How many people has he done this to?"

"I don't know," the Doctor muttered.

"Is it wrong to want to shoot him with his own blaster?"

Surprised to hear no trace of exaggeration whatsoever in her tone, he looked to her. "Right now…" He sucked in a breath through his teeth. "'Fraid so."

He was met with an unamused scowl. "I'm sorry, Dakro," he said. "We need him. Frankly, this is my last plan, and if we can't get him to help I'll be forced to think of something very clever very fast."

She sighed. "What makes you think he will help? Because I'm not seeing it."

"Well," he smiled, waggling his eyebrows, "let's find out, shall we?" He schooled his features back into neutrality as Tarik wandered back towards them, hands clasped behind his back.

"I must say, Doctor," said Tarik, "I did expect better of you."

"Yeah?" The Doctor stepped forward to meet him. "What are you doing in here?"

He ignored the question. "I thought, for a moment, you'd actually managed to escape, or at least to somehow wreak havoc from inside the Maze. Now that would have made for fantastic viewing; even criminal lowlife likes to see an underdog succeed." He shrugged. "For a short while, at least. But no. One of my own bounty hunters managed to make more of a fuss than you. You couldn't even keep the group together. How is that human friend of yours doing, by the way?"

The Doctor's gaze hardened. "Enough banter. Why are you here?"

He made a _tsk_ noise with his tongue. "Come, now. You've been interesting, but you can't bait me into letting you off easy. It's nothing to you why I'm here. You're about to scuttle back into the Maze and go on your way."

He arched an eyebrow. "Am I?" Taking another step, bringing him nose to nose with Tarik, he was both surprised and pleased to see a flicker of fear in his eyes. He ignored the fact that his hand was drifting towards his holster. "Why," he said, low and threatening, "are you here?"

Lip curled in a grimace, Tarik turned and walked a safe distance away, where he began to pace back and forth. "I've experienced some… technical difficulties," he muttered reluctantly. "A hunter named Kai has made an attempt on my life. She blew up the power generators that fed my house, and I was forced to come into the Maze, where the life support still works."

 _There we are_. "And now you're stuck. Same as us." The Doctor forced himself not to smile at the irony.

"Not the same," he corrected. "I can call for help. In fact, I was about to head off and do just that, so if you'll excuse me–"

"Well, you could do that," said the Doctor. "Someone might even hear you. See, a nebula is a tricky place." He wandered closer to Tarik, looked up as if he could actually see the starscape above. "Easy for things to get lost in all that particulate, all those ionized gases. And us, well, we're in the thick of it, aren't we? Frontier Seven is in a rather dense pocket, right near the outside edge, if memory serves. I have a very good memory."

Tarik laughed. "Quite right. Have you finished?"

"If you want to send a transmission, you've got to get through all that, and the rest of the Nebula as well." He lowered his gaze, and fixed Tarik with a penetrating stare. "Even assuming there is someone out there willing to give you a lift—and, no offence, you ask me that seems like a stretch… how do you know anyone is going to come? You could end up sitting in here forever, waiting for a ship that never shows."

The tiniest hint of doubt crossed Tarik's face, just for a second. The Doctor was, frankly, amazed that he had listened to a word. He hadn't struck him as the receptive type.

After a moment's hesitation he opened his mouth to speak—and shut it again, confused, when a series of faint clunks resounded through the hallways, almost inaudible even in the silence.

"What?" asked Dakro, glancing around. "What is that?"

"It sounded like… no," Tarik murmured. He couldn't be bothered to finish for their benefit. "No, can't be." Suddenly, he reached into his jacket, pulled out a datapad and began tapping rapidly on the screen. His puzzled expression devolved into shock. "She's opened the doors," he said, alarmed.

"Really?" The Doctor sounded unimpressed.

"Kai, the– the bounty hunter. She must be going to check for a body." He tucked the datapad under his arm to root around in another pocket, and retrieved a small metal disc. When he turned it on, a holographic projection of the Maze flickered to life; with the turn of a knob he zoomed in on the very centre, an empty circle surrounded by many rings of hallways. "That's her beacon," he said, pointing to a little red dot.

It wasn't the only dot in the area, the Doctor noticed. There was a yellow spot, blinking on and off as it moved through the tangled corridors. It seemed to be doubling back and changing routes quite often, as if it wasn't sure exactly where it was going, but it was definitely headed towards the centre.

Tarik cursed, loudly enough to make Dakro start. "Never mind whether I can get a transmission out through the Nebula, there's no time now. If she can override my controls from inside the Maze, she can do whatever she likes from the house."

"Is she human? Can she even get outside?" asked Dakro.

"She's human, yes." He sighed. "But she brought a radiation suit. I saw it in her bag."

"And that didn't throw up any red flags for you?" the Doctor said, raising an eyebrow.

"The hunters can bring whatever they like. No communication technology, that's the only rule, but truth be told I don't really enforce it. More interesting that way."

The Doctor figured it was time to try his luck a bit. "Right, well–" He took Dakro by the arm and steered her away. "Suppose we'll just be scuttling off into the Maze now, as ordered. Good luck with your bounty hunter, can't say it was a pleasure meeting you but as we'll be dead shortly I expect that won't matter much."

"Wait!"

The two turned back to see Tarik glaring crossly at them.

"What about you?" he asked. "Can you survive the heat?"

"Piece of cake," said the Doctor, at the same time that Dakro said, "Probably not."

"Fine then." Tarik looked up at the ceiling and mumbled something under his breath that might have been, "I am going to regret this." Then he looked to the Doctor. "If you get my ship and land it under the Maze's heat shields, I will let you and all the other targets leave."

The Doctor smiled smugly, inwardly sighing in relief. "Thought you might come round. I have conditions."

He crossed his arms. "What do you want?"

"First, I'm going to get my ship, not yours. Much more efficient, practically zero chance of you running away. You're going to take us to the others _before_ I leave the Maze. You'll wait with them while I get the TARDIS, and that way you know I'll come back. Afterwards, I'm going to take you to the authorities. They can decide what to do with you."

"The authorities?" he exclaimed, incredulous. "Isn't it enough that I've agreed to let you lot go free?"

"No! You put us in here!" cried Dakro.

"I am contractually obligated not to let the targets leave the planet! I have longstanding and highly confidential relationships with my investors and I don't take this decision lightly!"

"Yeah? Well, next time try not kidnapping and murdering sentient beings," snapped the Doctor. "That's the offer. You can take it or you can stay here, try your luck with your original plan. Rest assured, when that bounty hunter finds you I'm not going to stand in her way."

Tarik looked downright furious at the fact that the Doctor had taken control of the situation. He opened and closed his mouth a number of times, like a fish, trying desperately to formulate an argument.

The Doctor looked on coldly. It seemed he had been right in his assessment of the gamemaster: he was a greedy and heartless person, but in the end he was more scared of dying than starting anew. Probably because he believed he could indeed start anew, build up some other criminal empire. Oh, he was angry at having been thwarted, but he didn't really think he would face any consequences for his actions, not from the human authorities. And neither did the Doctor. He had no doubt that Tarik was capable of offering them more money than they could possibly refuse. Luckily, he thought he had a way to ensure that didn't happen.

Finally, Tarik shut his mouth and clenched his jaw. "Fine," he gritted out. "I accept your terms."

The Doctor grinned, upsetting the tense mood. "Brilliant!"

Glancing back and forth between him and Tarik, Dakro opened her mouth to speak; from the expression on her face, it wasn't going to be something cooperative. The Doctor gave her a warning look. _Please, please, not right now,_ he begged silently. He'd already pushed his luck with Tarik, and no matter how much he despised the man he wouldn't risk the safety of the other captives.

Dakro glared, holding his gaze just long enough to make him doubt whether she would back down. But she eventually pursed her lips and turned away, crossing her arms over her chest. He got the feeling that she wasn't done with either of them, and the corner of his lips quirked into a smile at the thought of her—and Donna, of course—chewing Tarik out.

"Right!" the Doctor exclaimed. "Let's get going, shall we?"

"Alright," sighed Tarik. He returned his attention to the holoprojector in his grip. "First step, finding the others."

He zoomed out, displaying the entirety of the Maze, and flicked on a new layer. A number of green dots appeared over the map: there were two, grouped together along with a blue marker near the edge of the circular pathways, which the Doctor guessed represented him, Dakro, and Tarik. But then there were three others—Donna, Hssii'shi, and Narriss, evidently—that had found themselves at the very centre, right next to the red dot that Tarik had identified as the bounty hunter Kai. The Doctor's blood ran cold.

"What are they doing there?" he asked, his voice almost a growl.

"That… that is extremely unlikely," stammered Tarik. He fiddled with the controls, causing the image to flicker and then reform. "How could they possibly have gotten there?"

The Doctor rounded on him, eyes flashing. "Well obviously they have so don't waste my time. How far are we from the centre?"

"Erm…" His eyes traced a path through the winding corridors. "From here, it must be at least three kilometres. I don't know about you, but I certainly can't run that far."

Mind racing, the Doctor checked over his route. "What about the other floors?"

"Slower. Good chance of falling to your death, too." He hesitated. "It's too late, you know. You can't get there in time."

"She won't kill them," he muttered, still scanning for a better path but rapidly reaching the conclusion that Tarik had found the right one. "Why would she? You won't be around to give her a prize."

At this, a light furrow appeared in Tarik's brow. The Doctor didn't have time to worry about what he was thinking.

"It's not her I'm bothered about," he said, pointing to the yellow dot still headed steadily for the centre. "That's another hunter, yes?"

Tarik nodded.

"One who doesn't know the game is over?"

He paled. Not, the Doctor knew, because he was worried for the other group, but because he had surely reached the (correct) conclusion that if the Doctor's friends died, the deal was off.

"Hold this," he muttered, shoving the holomap at the Doctor and taking the datapad from under his arm.

Then Dakro spoke up. "Doctor…?"

He looked at her. She pointed to the map.

"Where did the red dot go?"

"What?" Tarik glanced up from whatever he was doing, growing more agitated with each passing second. Indeed, the hunter's tracker had disappeared off the map, nowhere to be found. "No, that's… What?"

"What does that mean?" demanded the Doctor.

"Her, uh, her beacon has been destroyed." He shook his head, helpless. "I think," he murmured, "something has gone very wrong."

The Doctor had the awful feeling that he was very right. "Do those paths move as well?"

"Yes, they're on repulsors. They rotate. But–"

Dakro caught on. "Can you create a straight path from here to the centre?"

Tarik took back the datapad and pulled up a new screen. "Just about," he said. "We'll have to take a few turns to get to the edge, but from there it should work."

"Do it," ordered the Doctor. A moment later, the earth-shaking, ear-splitting grind of a hundred slabs of stone moving at once filled the air. Tarik winced, and Dakro pressed her hands over her ears.

He watched the holomap shift with the Maze, ring upon ring revolving around the green dots in the centre until the gaps in the walls aligned. The scale marker told him that they had just over a kilometre to travel; _five minutes,_ he calculated quickly. _Maybe six._ Tarik wouldn't be able to keep up, but he didn't care. Just as long as he got there before the last bounty hunter.

 _Hold on, Donna,_ he implored. _Five minutes._


	11. Chapter 11

_Ssskrrrick!_

The sound of claws rasping on stone came again, echoing harshly around the great central cavern. Donna shivered. Whatever was out there, in the vast stretch of concentric hallways, it was coming for them; she just knew it. It was taunting them, circling the middle of the Maze as it closed in on the empty entrance point. In the anxious silence, Donna could tell each footstep by the click of its claws on the ground, each pause by the quiet snuffling noise it made when it tried to sniff them out. Suddenly she felt very exposed, with openings in all four directions and no clear idea of where the creature was.

The thing took in a deep breath and snarled, long and louder than any dog Donna had ever heard. She jumped, her heart lurching in her chest; Hssii'shi let out an involuntary squeak and leapt away from the opening in the wall to his right, his talons skittering on the stone as he struggled to stay upright. He bumped into her, and sprung away again in fright.

Watching him dissolve into panic, Donna's own fear abruptly vanished. Suddenly she could think clearly; she knew what she had to do. She grabbed Hssii'shi by the bony shoulders and forced him to look at her.

"You focus on me now, okay?" she ordered. He nodded shakily. "We're gonna be fine. Take a deep breath, and listen very carefully. Got it?"

Another nod, and an audible gulp as he tried to control his rapid breathing.

"Can you hear where that thing is?"

Hssii'shi pointed to the right. "Over there," he whispered. "It keeps turning around, going back and forth. It knows we're here."

"If we go into the Maze, can you keep telling me where it is?"

His eyes widened, but he didn't protest. "Roughly, yes."

"Good. We'll have to be really quiet, okay?" Somewhere in the back of her mind, Donna knew she must've gone mad. Leaving the site of their only way out for a Maze they weren't capable of navigating—she cursed Narriss for destroying Kai's equipment—went against every meagre piece of survival advice she could recall. But right now, every one of her good old human instincts were screaming at her to get out, get away from Narriss and the weapon. She had a horrible feeling that he wouldn't help any of them when that creature showed up. Not even himself. She and Hssii'shi couldn't get in the way of his strange and cryptic plans again, she wouldn't allow it.

So she grabbed Hssii'shi's skinny little hand and told him in a whisper to lead the way. He paused, listening intently, and Donna found herself scanning the room for any sign of the creature's whereabouts, though she knew she couldn't see it. Her gaze found nothing but Narriss, still standing in the middle of the dais and staring at them with an odd, sorrowful look in his large black eyes.

"It is too late, Donna," he said, sounding genuinely affected for perhaps the first time since she'd met him. He blinked, lowering his head in placidity. "Do not prolong it. Please."

Donna held his gaze for a long moment, trying to formulate a response. Before she could even decide what to think of his request, Hssii'shi was pulling her along, towards the opening to their left. She turned away and followed him into the Maze, leaving Narriss behind.

The moment they turned the corner, silence seemed to press in on them. The corridor was narrow and dim, and curved tightly around the empty space in the middle; they couldn't see very far ahead, but Hssii'shi seemed to be better at identifying the source of the scratching and growling in amongst all the echoes than she was. She would have to trust him to lead the way.

"Not too far," she breathed into his ear. "We have to be able to get back to the exit."

"Why?" whispered Hssii'shi. "We can't open it. Narriss…" He suddenly looked rather lost. "Narriss broke the datapad."

Donna, willfully shoving aside her own feelings about Narriss's betrayal, reached into the inner pocket of the Doctor's suit jacket and pulled out the sonic screwdriver. She grinned. "Can't we?"

"The Doctor's buzzy thing?" he asked, the feathers on his crest ruffling in confusion.

"It does more than just buzz." She frowned. "Well, no, not really. But Kai said she'd disabled the– er, the deadlocks, right? So now, we should be able to use this to open the door. Just as soon as… well, once that thing leaves."

 _Once it's done with Narriss._

"Alright. Okay." Hssii'shi sucked in a deep breath. "Follow me."

He lifted his head, listening to the tiny little echoes that told of someone or something moving around, then crept off along the corridor, stopping to peer around the bend every couple seconds. Donna winced at every quiet click of his talons, though he was trying very hard not to make any noise, and did her best to set her feet down softly. It was difficult; her entire body had started shaking of its own accord, making it hard to keep her balance. She was actively resisting the urge to lie down on the ground in the fetal position and hope it somehow stopped that thing from finding her.

But she reminded herself of poor Hssii'shi, and of the Doctor, still missing somewhere in the Maze, and refocused on her task. They just had to wait until whatever was tracking them down lost interest or wandered far enough to give them a bit of space. Then, hopefully, they could sneak out through the exit and lock the thing inside.

Hssii'shi led her deeper into the Maze, taking the first couple turns they came to. The narrow, dark hallways, their walls growing noticeably taller as they moved away from the centre, should have felt oppressive, but Donna was just glad not to be out in the open. It was getting harder and harder to hear what was going on in the centre and beyond, and the quiet brought some minor comfort. She was more than a little ashamed to realize that she just wanted to get as far away as she could; she didn't want to be close enough to hear whether or not that creature found Narriss.

Suddenly it hit her that the weird, scrawny, terribly pale alien whom she had never quite managed to like was about to die, and she'd left him behind. Did he even know what he was doing? He couldn't possibly want this. As far as she knew, he was about to sacrifice himself for nothing, and she was going to let him do it.

The Doctor wouldn't have let him.

Donna stopped in her tracks, groaning inwardly. Hssii'shi heard her stop walking and turned back, glancing around nervously for whatever had made her pause.

"What is it?" he breathed.

Donna shook her head, hoping he could forgive her for this. "We can't just leave him behind," she whispered. "I'm sorry. I've got to go back, you go find somewhere to hide and I'll come find you after."

"No."

His stern refusal took her by surprise.

"You're right," he said. "We can't go. I'm coming with you."

Donna opened her mouth to protest—she was just as unwilling to let Hssii'shi put himself in danger—but he was giving her the most resolute look she'd yet seen from the little bird-creature, and she realized there was no arguing with him now. She took a deep breath.

"We can't just run back in," she decided. "Narriss still has that gun, he'll only stop us again." She frowned, biting her lip as she tried to think fast. There were now three rings separating them from the centre, and the distance between the gaps in the walls was getting larger; if they walked too far in search of a convenient path, they could easily end up right on the opposite side.

Hssii'shi bobbed his head a few times in agreement. "What if we–"

His suggestion was cut off by a deep, rumbling growl, distinctly closer than before, and he stopped with his beak open. Donna's breath caught in her throat.

"Quick!" she hissed, and pulled him clockwise around the hallway, making a beeline for the next ring outwards. They turned the corner and continued along, hurried through the next gap, and waited behind the wall, their backs pressed to the stone.

Donna heard another muffled noise, but couldn't tell where it came from. "Hssii'shi, are we good here?" she whispered.

"I think so," he replied. He swallowed hard, trying to quell the persistent tremble in his slight frame. "It must still be trying to reach the centre." As he turned his head round, attempting to figure out exactly where the sounds were coming from, he froze. "Donna."

"Yeah?" She looked to him, then followed his gaze. Down the hall to the left, where she might have expected to see a dead end, was a funny little wall about half the height of the rest. Realization dawned on her quickly.

"Oh my God," she breathed. "We were up there. That's–"

"Yup." Hssii'shi glanced around cautiously before scurrying up to the wall. "We can get to the centre like we did last time. As long as we aren't seen, it could work."

Donna dreaded where this plan would lead them, but she heard another distant scraping, and decided she would much rather be up there than down in the corridors. She walked up to the wall and stretched; she was able to hook her fingers over the edge, but Hssii'shi didn't even come close to reaching.

"If I give you a boost, can you help me up?" she asked quietly.

He nodded.

"Good. Don't make a sound."

Kneeling down, Donna laced her fingers together and readied her hands near the wall. Hssii'shi reached up as far as he could, hooked his talons into a crevice, producing a quiet scratch that made her wince, and carefully placed a clawed foot into her hands; he leaned forwards, testing his weight, then stepped up fully. Donna, pleased to find that he was about half the weight of a human of his height, managed to stand and push him up until he got a grip on the top of the wall and pulled himself the rest of the way. He crouched there, silent, until he was sure he hadn't been noticed, then turned to look down at her.

"Cmon. Hurry," he urged.

"Is it nearby?" she asked.

He shook his head. "It's near the middle. Hurry!"

Knowing that their time to save Narriss was running out gave her a new burst of energy. She grabbed onto the edge of the wall and worked the toe of her shoe into a groove; it gave her just enough leverage to wriggle up and get her arms hooked over the top of the wall. Hssii'shi, minding his talons, grabbed onto her arm and helped her pull herself up the rest of the way. Donna rolled onto her back and stayed there, panting. She might have become accustomed to running, but she was still rubbish at pull-ups. The Doctor was _so_ getting a slap for all this trouble.

 _If he's even alive,_ she thought, involuntarily.

"Right," she huffed, rising to her hands and knees. Sure enough, they were on top of the last large step in the series they'd used to get down not half an hour ago. On the other side was the same short hallway leading straight to the centre; the half-wall they'd scrambled up last time lay at the end, and the entrance to the middle ring just beyond and to the right. She still couldn't see the thing that was lurking out there, but she could hear it more clearly and she figured Hssii'shi was right—they didn't have much time before it managed to sniff its way to the centre.

Instead of going down the other side like last time, Donna helped Hssii'shi the rest of the way up, onto the wall nearest the centre. She climbed up after, and crawled cautiously forward, over the next corridor and beyond. It was only once they had a clear path to their destination that she realized she had no idea what to do. Two lives rested in her hands; hers as well. If she got it wrong, all three of them could be over, just like that. And suddenly she felt very scared.

Both fortunately and unfortunately, she was not granted the time to dwell on it further. Before she could even begin to formulate a plan, there came a loud and heavy clunk, and the stone beneath her feet gave a jolt. Then it shifted. Then started moving, slowly but surely, with a sound so loud she thought it might well split her head open. The wall they knelt on was rotating, the entire massive ring of stone spinning along with every other in sight.

 _Oh, God,_ thought Donna. _It can't be a carousel too, can it?_

As soon as the initial shock wore off, chaos descended. Donna scrambled to her feet, staggering as she tried to compensate for the movement of the wall. She resisted the urge to press her hands over her ears and pulled Hssii'shi up with her.

"What's happening?" he cried, eyes wide and fearful. He couldn't take the noise, and had the palms of his hands over his ear openings.

"I don't know," she shouted back. As they spun, she got a brief glimpse of something large, dark and awfully close, before it was hidden again by the walls.

"Donna, look out!"

Distracted by the figure and the terrible cacophony, Donna didn't register his warning until it was too late. Something hit the side of her leg and refused to yield, and suddenly she was swept off her feet. For a split second she panicked, thinking she was about to fall to the unforgiving ground, but, inexplicably, she landed on something much closer than that. She gasped in a breath as her tailbone made contact with stone, her head spinning as she tried to adjust. She managed to get to her hands and knees only to find herself on what seemed to be a short piece of ceiling, attached to the next wall out and rotating in the opposite direction.

Right away she looked around for Hssii'shi, making sure he was alright; she spotted him crouched atop the very innermost wall, having leapt safely out of the way. His beak was moving, but she couldn't understand what he was saying. Frankly, she was too distracted by the sharp, worrying pain in her shin and ankle where the end of the stone block had hit her leg. As the incredible noise started to taper off, the wall segments settling one by one in their new positions, she sat down and quickly prodded at the injury, wincing at the blood starting to stain her sock. She hoped it was nothing more serious than cuts and bruises, but she was a bit too disoriented to tell just yet.

She didn't hear Hssii'shi's shouts until her own platform lurched to a halt, but by then another noise had captured her attention. It was, as the Doctor might say, a Very Bad Noise; it sent goosebumps prickling up her arms and a shiver down her spine. It was the sound of claws on stone, and it was coming from directly to her left.

Donna could only watch, frozen in horror, as a giant, hairy hand hooked itself onto the top of the wall, just beyond her chunk of ceiling, followed by another. She found herself unable to move as a massive, dark-furred being pulled itself slowly, inexorably up and onto the wall. It raised its head, revealing beady orange eyes, large ears like a wolf's, and a long, tapered snout. Then it snarled—or perhaps smiled?—and exposed a fearsome set of fangs, and as it got to its feet it reached behind its back and drew a long-barreled blaster rifle.

Only then did Donna rediscover her ability to move and breathe and think. She scrambled to her feet and backed away from the formidable creature, holding a hand up between them in an automatic attempt to keep it away.

"Now, hold on," she said, dimly registering that this never worked when the Doctor did it, and that it probably wouldn't work for her. "Just tell me what you want, and maybe I can help. Who are you?"

Inexplicably, this gave the creature pause. It looked at her, curious, tilting its head and blinking owlishly; then it laughed, a low, grating sound that reverberated around the cavern. She realized that it must have stood a solid two meters tall, and though it appeared to be sentient it had more than enough wolfish features to kill her without needing the gun. She got the feeling it was going to use it anyway.

"Funny human," it chuckled. Its voice was a rasping rumble, and its fangs flashed each time it spoke. "In fact, you can help. And you will."

Donna, now backed up against the edge of the ceiling, was forced to stop, but the wolf-creature kept coming. It was only a few meters away when it raised the gun and trained it at her chest, and she decided she didn't like its idea of "helping".

There was a click as it disengaged the safety, and instinct took over. With a deep breath she turned and jumped off the chunk of stone, landing hard in the corridor below. She felt a sharp stab of pain in her ankle, but rolled and clambered to her feet anyway, ignoring the ache. She only had a second to register that this hallway had definitely not existed a minute ago—it led directly to the centre on her right and stretched as far into the Maze as she could see to the left—before the alien, who she could only assume was one of the other bounty hunters, appeared at the precipice.

It didn't take her much longer to realize that running was useless here. This being could catch her in seconds, and the walls on either side were much too high to climb back up. The chase was over.

Panic gripped her, squeezing the air out of her lungs. She couldn't die here, she couldn't. Glancing over her shoulder, desperately hoping that at least Hssii'shi was safe and hidden away, she backed up until she hit the opposite wall. Her knees shook, threatening to give out beneath her, as her mind worked overtime, searching for a way out. The alien watched from the top of the wall, pleased and secure in the knowledge that she wasn't going anywhere. It raised its gun.

Donna shut her eyes, resisting the urge to curl up and hide. If she was going to die, she decided right then, she would do so with dignity. As much as she could, at least, given the situation. So she waited, holding her breath, and hoped it wouldn't be a complete waste.

But several seconds passed, and then several more, and the shot never came. At first she felt annoyed at being kept waiting— _just get it over with,_ she pleaded silently, feeling worse by the moment, _just make it stop_. Then she realized that this had definitely exceeded the realm of teasing. Something wasn't right. Unsure what to expect, she cracked open one eye.

She was just in time to see the canine alien sling the rifle over its shoulder and leap to the ground. It didn't approach her, but went stalking off down the hall to her right. She looked, and her heart fell when she saw Narriss, on his knees in the middle of the corridor. His white robes, now dirtied and worn, hung from his slender frame and pooled around his legs, making him seem much smaller than he was. He had his hands on his knees and his head bowed; he didn't look up as the bounty hunter approached, circling him and sniffing curiously.

"Mighty Beast," he was murmuring, over and over again, "accept this gift. Leave our world in peace. Honoured Beast, accept this gift. Leave our world in peace. Mighty Beast…"

Donna found she couldn't really celebrate the fact that she was still alive, not when she knew Narriss was about to take her place. She opened her mouth to call out to him, though she wasn't sure what to say; then, just as the bounty hunter circled around towards her, a birdlike face poked out from around the corner at the end of the hall.

Hssii'shi held up a finger in front of his beak, telling her to be quiet, before drawing back into the centre ring. Somehow, her heart dropped further.

"Tarik was right," rumbled the bounty hunter, pausing behind Narriss. "You are fun."

Donna wondered what he meant by that, and where she'd heard that name before. Then the gun was back in his hands, and aimed at Narriss's head, and she abandoned those thoughts to scramble for a plan.

"Stop!"

The call came from the centre. When Donna looked back, she was stunned to see Hssii'shi standing in the entrance, holding Narriss's abandoned rifle. He had it raised and pointed vaguely at the bounty hunter—it was enough to give the massive alien pause.

"Leave him alone," he ordered, though his voice cracked. Something on the gun was rattling quietly as his hands trembled, but he swallowed hard and took a step closer, hefting the weapon to rest more comfortably on his shoulder. "I don't– I don't want to hurt you. Just go."

The bounty hunter hesitated a second longer, his own rifle still pointed steadily at Narriss, then burst into laughter.

"I'll shoot!" warned Hssii'shi, his voice pitching too high to be menacing, and the hunter laughed louder.

"Prove it!" he said gleefully, and turned back to Narriss.

Narriss was still chanting. "Mighty Beast, accept this gift. Leave our world in–"

The last word was interrupted by a whine, then a booming _crack!_ Donna couldn't bring herself to close her eyes as he slumped to the ground, silent.

But the silence only lasted a split second, as Hssii'shi, his face contorted in rage, raised his gun again and fired. By pure chance the bolt of energy found its mark, searing into the hunter's abdomen; he roared in pain and anger, dropping the rifle to hang from its strap as he clutched at the wound and staggered towards the wall. Hssii'shi dropped his own gun and stepped back, eyes wide with shock, as it clattered loudly to the floor. Donna couldn't believe it.

Then, in the ensuing quiet, broken only by the bounty hunter's pained groans and hisses, she heard footsteps. She and Hssii'shi shared a look of confusion; then his eyes darted to the side, and his beak fell open.

"DONNA!" shouted a voice from behind her. "DONNAAAA!"

Donna spun around to be greeted by what seemed, in that moment, to be the greatest sight she'd ever seen: the Doctor, running full tilt towards her, his hair wilder than ever and a huge grin on his face. Her heart leapt.

He barely slowed as he reached her, instead using the momentum to wrap her up and lift her clean off the ground in a crushing hug. She threw her arms around his neck, laughing as he spun her around, and refused to let go even after he set her down gently. For once, she noticed, he actually seemed out of breath, his hearts pounding and his chest heaving, and she wondered how far he'd just run. She let out a shuddering exhale as all the adrenaline drained away, leaving her trembling and weak but so, so relieved. This could all finally be over.

After a long moment, the Doctor pulled away, holding her by the arms, and looked her up and down. "Are you okay?" he asked, almost frantic. "What happened? How did you get here?"

At that, Donna's gaze slipped past him, to Narriss's body crumpled on the ground, and the bounty hunter slumped against the wall, and Hssii'shi, staring at him, frozen. Then her eyes met the Doctor's, and it all hit her. She'd nearly died. She'd come so close. And now Narriss was dead and all the risks she'd taken, putting her and Hssii'shi in danger, had been for nothing. She'd failed.

She bit her lip hard, trying to stave off tears, and shook her head.

Immediately she was back in his arms, her head cradled against his shoulder as he rocked her soothingly side to side.

"It's alright," he murmured, one hand moving to rub her back gently. "All safe now, yeah? It'll be okay."

Donna sniffled and clutched at him, pulling him closer to her; she was snapped out of it right away when he inhaled sharply, stiffening in her arms.

"Oh, God," she said, releasing him and stepping back. "Are you hurt?"

"Ah, nothing major," he said. "Stun bolt."

Donna marched around behind him and immediately spotted the large charred patch in his shirt, over his right shoulder. "Doctor!" she exclaimed, appalled at his dismissal. "What did you do?"

"It's just a burn!" he insisted. "I'll live."

At that, he crossed behind her and slipped his suit jacket off her shoulders, then strode over to where Hssii'shi was still standing.

"Hey there, mate," he said gently. "Long time no see. You alright?"

Hssii'shi looked at him like he'd only just processed that he was there. "Er… yes. I– I think."

The Doctor draped his suit jacket over his slender shoulders and guided him to sit, lowering himself to the ground next to him. The little avian looked to be on the verge of tears (if he could indeed cry), his wide and fearful eyes darting from the Doctor to Donna to Narriss to the injured bounty hunter. His feathers had not settled back down yet—if anything, he looked puffier than ever—and they quivered to make a quiet rustling noise as his body continued to shake uncontrollably. All the excitement had finally gotten to be too much for him.

The Doctor seemed to realize the need for sensitivity, and kept his voice low and soft. "Hssii'shi," he said, "can you tell me what happened?"

Hssii'shi took a deep, shuddering breath.

"Did you use that rifle?"

He made to speak, but closed his beak once more and nodded frenetically, his eyes squeezed shut. He turned and pressed his head into the Doctor's shoulder, hiding his face.

"Oh. Okay," said the Doctor. He was a bit surprised but took it in stride, looping an arm around his shoulders. Donna didn't miss the brief flicker of pain in his expression as he aggravated his injury further. "There you go. No worries! We're all good now, just about to leave. You take a breather."

Donna knelt in front of him, watching Hssii'shi with concern. "Is he going to be okay?" she asked.

"He'll be fine," assured the Doctor. "He's remarkably hardy, for his species and age."

"His age?"

He gave her a look full of sad resignation, as if he'd only just realized that she didn't know. "He's only a kid, Donna. These blue feathers on his chest—Calidriss grow them as hatchlings, and they start to fall out during adolescence. He can't be more than eighteen, in human years."

Donna felt the first stirrings of anger, somewhere deep in her chest. _A kid_ , she thought numbly. She hadn't even thought about it.

The Doctor, with Hssii'shi still under his arm, cast a wary glance down the hallway, then leaned in close to her. "Fill me in," he said quietly. "Hurry. What happened here?"

The urgency in his tone made her nervous. She quickly told him of Kai and the trek to the centre of the Maze, the canine bounty hunter and Narriss's betrayal and their attempt to save him. It sounded wholly baffling, even to her, with all the details omitted, but the Doctor didn't ask for more until she'd finished.

"The bounty hunter, Kai," he prompted. "What do you know about her?"

Donna shrugged. "Not much."

"She was invited here? By… oh, what was his name? Tarik?"

"Oh yeah, right. Him."

"Who hired her to kill him?"

"She never said."

The Doctor squinted, confused. She could practically see his mind racing as he tried to reason through it. "And she specifically said she would be paid extra for every one of us she brought back?"

She nodded. "Five million," she recalled.

"Five million credits?" he said, disbelieving. "Each?"

"And fifty million for proof that that Tarik bloke is dead."

"What kind of proof?"

"Does it matter?" She shot a glance behind her. "Doctor, what about that wolf thing? He's hurt, I don't think–"

"Leave him," he instructed. "Now, just–"

He broke off and averted his gaze downwards just as Donna caught the sound of two new sets of footsteps. When she looked down the hall, out into the Maze, she saw two figures running towards them. Or rather, one running—as they got closer she realized that this was Dakro, and was surprised to feel a great surge of relief, seeing the abrasive, stubborn, standoffish alien alive and well—and one sort of staggering along behind. She didn't recognize him.

Dakro arrived first, panting hard as she slowed to a stop in front of Narriss's body. She stared for a long and uncomfortable moment before looking up at the three of them, sitting on the ground. Her eyes met Donna's, as if to ask what the hell had gone wrong here, but Donna had no answer for her. Then she walked up slowly and sat between her and the Doctor, still breathless.

The horned alien's gaze wandered up to meet Donna's, and for a second she worried she was about to be the target of an angry outburst. But she only cleared her throat, and murmured, "Is… Narriss, is he–" She swallowed, unable to finish, and turned away.

Donna felt her own throat constrict; seeing Dakro so obviously affected, perhaps for the first time, brought her a profound sense of guilt and shame. "Yeah," she said quietly. "He's dead."

Dakro processed this for a moment, before taking a deep breath and nodding, drawing herself up to sit straight. Just like that, the vulnerability was gone and she was all business once more. "Hssii'shi, are you alright?" she asked.

Hssii'shi shuddered, his feathers finally starting to smooth down, and slowly sat up, nodding. He opened his eyes and offered a tentative smile, relieved at least to be reunited with the Doctor and Dakro. Then he glanced behind her and frowned.

"Who's that?"

Donna was abruptly reminded of the third new arrival, and looked round to see that he, whoever he was, had stopped about a dozen feet away and was leaning heavily against the wall, struggling to catch his breath.

He appeared to be human, with blond hair and unsettlingly bright blue eyes, but he wasn't dressed like any human Donna had yet seen. He had on a black coat with long tails and gold embroidery around the collar, paired with white pants that were much too tight for her tastes, and she wondered briefly whether they had somehow ended up in the early nineteen hundreds. Something about him just irked her; he hadn't even spoken yet and she already sort of wanted to slap him. She couldn't fathom where the Doctor had gotten him, or why he'd dragged him along.

"Why…" wheezed the stranger, his eyes flashing as he fixed the group with an irritated glare, "did I… agree to this?" He had a pompous accent and a sharp, acerbic voice, and Donna's feelings of dislike only intensified.

The Doctor sighed, and shot Donna a look that said he felt exactly the same way. "Donna, Hssii'shi," he said wearily, "meet Tarik."


	12. Chapter 12

In hindsight, the Doctor didn't know why he'd assumed any of this would go over well.

Immediately, Donna's gaze flicked back to Tarik. He watched as comprehension dawned on her, then disbelief. Then anger. Then fury, and before he could even register what was happening she had leapt to her feet, stormed over and delivered him a vicious backhand slap across the face. The gamemaster, still trying to recover from the run and taken utterly by surprise, was sent sprawling onto the ground. He looked up at her, too shocked to try to get up or move away, and raised a hand to his face.

"Wha– what…" he spluttered. "What was that for?"

The Doctor saw her tense up and sprung to his feet, holding her back by the arms before she could assault him again.

"Alright, easy," he said, his voice low. "I think that's quite enough of that."

Donna shot him a burning glare and shrugged him off, but made no move towards Tarik as he staggered to his feet, holding his cheek. It wasn't often that the Doctor saw true, undisguised anger from her, but he saw it now. How could he blame her?

"You–" Donna jabbed a finger at Tarik, who winced. "I'm not done with you."

"If you want my help," he retorted, drawing himself up in an attempt to restore his dignity, "then oh yes you are."

"Help?" she demanded of the Doctor.

The Doctor grimaced. "Tarik has agreed to let us out of the Maze," he began, wary of the distinct lack of tolerance in her expression. "In return, I've agreed to not let him be assassinated."

Her eyes narrowed, then widened. "But Kai's dead, remember?" she said, lowering her voice. Tarik leaned closer to eavesdrop. "There's no one left to assassinate him."

He shook his head. "Never mind that. She can't have been working alone. I expect she'll have a getaway ship coming, and I've really no idea what might happen if we're still here when it arrives. Besides," he smiled, self-satisfied, "I'm his ride."

Donna held his gaze for a moment longer, dubious and cross, then relented. "Fine," she hissed. "But if this _Tarik_ bloke doesn't get what's coming to him, I'll give it to him myself."

"Oh, I've no doubt," assured the Doctor. He looked around the hallway, at the evidence of all the chaos he'd just barely missed, and tried to decide where to start: Narriss, lying limp and still on the ground; the canine bounty hunter slumped against the wall, his breaths coming as harsh, pained wheezes now; Hssii'shi and Dakro standing together to the side, talking quietly and trying not to look at the body. Tarik was staring at him with an eyebrow raised in impatience, either oblivious or indifferent to the sense of defeat hanging in the air. Annoyance sparked hot under his skin, and he turned away without acknowledging him.

The bounty hunter, though clearly in pain, was not bleeding too badly, so he crouched next to Narriss and pressed two fingers to the side of his neck, feeling for a pulse. He'd known it was futile from the moment he saw the blaster wound in the back of his head, but he waited anyways; he wasn't familiar with Narriss' species, and for a few seconds he entertained the thought that perhaps he was capable of surviving this. Eventually, he was forced to admit defeat, and stood with a heavy sigh. The movement caused the fabric of his oxford to brush the burned and blistered skin around his shoulder, and he grimaced against the pain, shifting his arm to ease the discomfort.

Donna noticed, and stepped in front of him to stop him from hurrying off again. "Sit," she ordered, reaching for the pocket of her brown leather jacket. "I think I can help."

"We've got to–" The Doctor broke off at her hard stare, shutting his mouth; though all he wanted was to clear everything up and get back to the TARDIS, he was forced to admit that the burn did hurt quite a bit.

"What exactly did you do, anyway?" she asked, making quick work of the topmost buttons of his shirt and carefully folding the fabric down past his shoulder. He felt her cringe away when she saw the wound.

Then he heard Dakro chuckle behind him. "He antagonized a janitor droid," she said. "It shot him once he got too bothersome."

Donna laughed. So did Tarik.

"I was trying to find out more about the Maze," he grumbled, craning his head to see what Donna was doing.

She'd fished out a tube and a few bandages, and was staring at them, apparently unsure of what to do next. Dakro knelt down beside her as Hssii'shi hovered over the two of them, peering anxiously at what was happening. The Doctor groaned internally; he'd never live this down.

"I don't know what this says," said Donna, squinting at the print. "Wait, it's…"

"Here," Dakro offered, taking the medical supplies. "Let me."

The Doctor bit back a gasp as she smeared a good amount of a cold gel over the burns, but the pain began to fade almost immediately, replaced by a cooling tingle. "Oh, that's lovely," he said. "What is that?"

"Ibumine." She dabbed on another generous blob. "Sort of an all-purpose healing salve and disinfectant. The Earth Empire uses it. A lot of it." She wiped her hands on the cleanest part of her trousers she could find, and began unwrapping a self-adhering bandage.

It didn't hurt much when she put it on, smoothing down the sides; the salve seemed to have partially numbed his nerves, and he was able to fix his shirt and push himself to his feet without trouble.

"Right then," he said, straightening his collar as he surveyed the group. "How would you like to get out of here?"

Hssii'shi nodded enthusiastically, and the Doctor watched with amusement as Donna moved protectively closer to him.

"So what now?" she asked. "We all leave, get the TARDIS and get out?"

The Doctor pursed his lips. "I'm afraid it isn't going to be that simple."

"Oh no, 'course not."

"You lot are going to wait here with Tarik while I go to the hangar and get the TARDIS."

Donna opened her mouth, and he interrupted before she could protest.

"This is the safest place right now, trust me, I'll only be a minute."

"No, Doctor–"

"The electromagnetic radiation out there is much too strong for– what're you all looking at?" He squinted, realizing that all three of them were staring at some point behind him. Then he heard a click; his hearts fell.

He turned slowly to face the barrel of Tarik's blaster pistol, pointed at his forehead. He set his jaw.

"I'm coming with you," said Tarik. "If Kai's dead, I can wear her EMR suit."

"Oh, bloody hell," growled the Doctor, taking a step closer, heedless of the blaster. He had half a mind to grab it from the man, but wouldn't risk a shot going off with the others behind him.

Tarik took a step back. "I'll shoot you!" he insisted.

"You won't."

"I will!" He backed up further, brandishing the weapon at him. "I am not having you rooting around in my house!"

The Doctor fixed him with a penetrating glare. He didn't believe that Tarik would shoot; not out of the goodness of his heart, and certainly not out of a lack of confidence that he could get off the planet alone, now that his would-be assassin was dead. He didn't need them anymore. He had his radiation suit, and his ship, and his gun. He could kill them all and be none the worse off.

But his hand was shaking, just a bit, and his eyes were wide with a fear that had nothing to do with the Doctor, and it dawned on him that he was, once again, missing something. Several things, even. He hated missing things.

About time he cleared it all up.

The Doctor smiled. "Alright."

Tarik blinked. His aim drifted downwards as he lost his focus. "What?"

"Alright," he repeated, jerking his head towards the centre. "You can come."

It took a moment of suspicious staring for him to slowly lower and holster the gun. "Okay then," he said, nodding with satisfaction. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

"Well, speak for yourself," the Doctor said mildly. "Let's go."

"Wait, Doctor." Donna stopped him with a hand on his arm. "Are you sure about this?" she asked, her eyes wide and anxious. "I thought we had to leave, fast."

"You can't do this," agreed Dakro, interjecting. She shot Tarik a dark glance, stepped closer and dropped her voice until it was barely audible. "He won't keep his word, you know that. As soon as you're alone–"

"I know," he said. "But I'm going to keep mine." He cast a dark look over his shoulder. "I can't let him go alone," he murmured. "If I don't go, he'll leave us. I have to get him into the TARDIS."

Donna regarded him. Her features clouded with something he couldn't quite identify—sorrow, perhaps? pity?—but she nodded regardless. "What about Furball over there?"

She looked towards the injured bounty hunter. The Doctor narrowed his eyes, considering, then turned to Tarik.

"Who is he?" he asked.

"A Thilian," said Tarik.

He glared. "I meant his name."

"Oh." The human man paused, then said, "Dev."

"He came here by choice?"

"Of course he did."

The Doctor nodded. Mind made up, he took the ibumine from Dakro and crossed the hall to stand above Dev, eyeing him coldly.

"Dev?"

The canine dwarfed him in both height and frame, but when he raised his head to regard the Doctor through bleary, pain-clouded eyes, he knew he wouldn't be a threat.

He tossed the tube of salve to the floor. "Find your own way out."

As he turned and walked away, the hunter roared in defiance, making the others jump. The Doctor heard the scrabble of claws on stone as he tried to drag himself up onto his hands and knees, and the long whine of pain and despair when he failed. They both knew that even if he could access the controls for the door, he wouldn't be able to operate them with his physiology; claws were all well and good for a killer, but they didn't do much good when operating technology. Right then, the Doctor couldn't care less. If the bounty hunter could allow sentient beings to be locked up and hunted down— _participate_ , even—then he could afford a taste of his own medicine.

"Come on," he told the others, without a backwards glance. "We're leaving."

Donna and Dakro exchanged a glance; in silent agreement, they stooped to grab Narriss' body by the legs and arms and carried him clumsily after the Doctor, trying not to jostle him too much.

The Doctor ignored the little twinge in his chest, realizing he'd forgotten about Narriss, and continued on down the hall. That, he mused, now that was a mystery in and of itself. Narriss might have been a bit… odd, but he'd seemed sound of mind and generally peaceful. Why would he refuse to leave the Maze?

He got the feeling he already knew the answer, somewhere in the very back of his mind; something had been niggling there the entire time, right from the moment they'd all made their introductions, and it was driving him mad. His brain was still a bit fuzzy from the stun bolt, the occasional tingle making his fingers and feet itch, and his bond with the TARDIS still felt wrong, somehow, dulled and staticky…

Yet another puzzle for which he was certain he knew the solution.

The Doctor reached the central ring of the Maze to find the much-aforementioned bounty hunter. Her body was sprawled out on the floor in the middle of the room—a grotesque standard, marking out the finish line.

"The floor opens up," Donna said quietly; not so much reverent as disturbed. "The door is that dark circle in the middle."

"Get it open," said the Doctor, leaning down to gingerly lift the hunter and move her out of the way. He figured it would only be proper to return her body to any family she may have had, though he wasn't sure how he would find them; if he had time, he supposed, he would come back and get her.

 _Violence begets violence_ , he thought sardonically, his hearts sinking just a bit lower.

Donna patted down her jacket, then went over to Hssii'shi and fished the sonic out of the suit jacket still hanging from his shoulders. "Kai undid the locks already." When the Doctor's hands were free, she tossed the sonic over to him. "I think you can just use this."

"Brilliant. Everyone on, then, can't have you waiting in here."

They all crowded near the middle of the platform, except Tarik, who made a beeline for a curious pile of discarded electronics and weapons by the edge of the room. He knelt, sifted around for a moment, then produced a little capsule, twisted and punctured.

"Kai's beacon," he said. He glanced over his shoulder at the Doctor. "I think you owe me some thanks. If not for these, we would never have found your friends in time."

" _Thanks?_ " asked Dakro, incredulous.

"There's a tracker on me?" Donna's hand flew to the back of her neck, feeling the skin for surgical scars or lumps.

"Relax," laughed Tarik. "They're tiny. They're stuck in your clothes, or–" he nodded to Hssii'shi– "in your case, to one of your feathers."

Hssii'shi shuddered, his crest puffing up as if he could feel the device.

Tarik tossed the broken capsule away, grabbed Kai's pack and began stuffing the pile of her things back into it, functional or not. "This is mine!" he exclaimed, affronted, when he found the damaged holomap. It flickered feebly, producing a broken model of the Maze, and he turned it off again.

"Serves you right," scoffed Donna.

He huffed and tossed it in with the rest. Finally, he grabbed a folded-up square of fabric—the radiation suit, the Doctor assumed—slung the bag over his shoulder and joined them on the dais.

"Can't have Dev using any of this stuff," he explained.

"Oh," Donna pouted. "Scared he's gonna come hunt you down?"

"Watch your mouth," he snapped.

"Alright!" interrupted the Doctor, though inwardly he was more than happy to let Donna have at him. He shot her a little smile, ignored Tarik's quiet noise of exasperation, and pointed the sonic at his feet.

The platform lurched into motion and began to sink, crunching and grating as it ground against the edge of the floor. The noise eased after the first couple feet, and a dim white light poured out of the gap between the slabs of stone, gradually revealing a small chamber with a dark tunnel leading away. The dais settled into a depression in the floor, and they all hurried off so the Doctor could seal the exit, all trying to hide the fact that they were listening for any sign of the Thilian—a scratch or a scrabble, a growl. A plea.

They heard nothing, and turned away without comment.

"Right!" The Doctor spun round to face the others. Donna and Dakro had laid Narriss by the edge of the room, Dakro's jacket covering his head. Hssii'shi hovered nearby, reluctant to get too close to the body but unwilling to leave their company.

"I'll only be a minute," he promised the trio. "Grab the TARDIS, get back here, pick you up. Easy!"

Donna and Dakro narrowed their eyes in identical expressions of scepticism.

"A minute!" he insisted. "Well, maybe five."

"Fine," said Donna. "But you'd better be back." She glanced at Tarik, her expression bearing an eerie resemblance to the one her mother so often shot him.

"Oh, don't be such a pessimist!" He looked towards Hssii'shi. "Take care of him, yeah?"

This seemed to placate her a bit. "Course," she said, placing a hand on Hssii'shi's shoulder even as he huffed indignantly.

The Doctor cracked a little smile, nodded to Dakro, and went to join Tarik.

There was a car parked at the side of the tunnel, and the two of them climbed into the front, Tarik behind the wheel and the Doctor in the passenger seat. It resembled an old Earth Jeep, he realized, boxy and utilitarian and not terribly pleasing to the eye; he was almost beginning to think Tarik had a thing for the antique aesthetic. The drive was tense, claustrophobic and utterly silent—except for the sound of the Doctor tapping his foot against the underside of the centre console—and both of them were relieved when it came to an end, a couple of minutes later.

Tarik turned into an alcove off the side of the tunnel with the precision of someone who'd done it a hundred times in near-darkness, maneuvering until the car faced the centre of the Maze.

"What're you doing that for?" asked the Doctor.

Tarik shot him a look. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you aren't going back," he pointed out.

His gaze hardened. He turned off the car and got out without a word, plunging the tunnel into complete darkness as the headlights cooled and shut down. The Doctor blinked as his eyes struggled to adjust, then blinked again when Tarik switched on a bright torch and shone it through the window.

"Get out," he ordered.

The impatience in his voice told the Doctor that he was already on thin ice. "Alright, alright," he said, pulling on the handle and stepping out of the car. "Hold your horses."

"What?"

"Oh, never mind."

The Doctor walked round the car to find himself facing a heavy metal blast door. It was noticeably warmer on this end of the tunnel, the sweltering, heavy air and the darkness working together to make a valiant effort at suffocating him. He was glad he'd left his jacket with Hssii'shi; he was already rolling up his shirtsleeves in anticipation of the oppressive heat waiting outside.

Meanwhile, Tarik was working at putting on Kai's radiation suit. It was a lovely little piece of tech, thought the Doctor; there must've been a good amount of engineering put into the thin, lightweight fabric, probably woven with some form of lead or other heavy metals. The abdomen and hips were a bit bulkier—an old technique to protect a humanoid's bone marrow and organs—but the rest of the suit was quite functional, sporting fitted gloves, steel-toed boots, and a helmet with a wide, red-tinted faceplate. He spotted a little Geiger counter built into a metal gauntlet on the left wrist, as well as temperature and atmosphere controls. A brilliantly compact oxygen tank was attached to the back, for cases in which the helmet's filters wouldn't be sufficient to clean the air; it was nearly flat, and couldn't have been more than fifteen by thirty centimetres. The Doctor longed to get his hands on the suit, work out just how it was built. He figured he could make a few improvements, perhaps add one of those little dangly air fresheners…

Tarik cast a glance over his shoulder as he retrieved a small datapad from his coat, before zipping the suit up the front. "Are you sure you won't keel over on me out there?" he asked, more amused than concerned.

"Nah," the Doctor dismissed. "What's the worst a sun can throw off? Gamma rays, UV, perhaps the odd coronal mass ejection? Child's play! Though–" he sucked in a breath through his teeth– "get something living in there and, well, that's a different story entirely."

Most people would have found that statement odd, but Tarik seemed uninterested in just about everything he had to say, and he didn't once look up from his datapad. It was incredibly irritating; not for the first time, the Doctor lamented how little he'd been listened to since entering the Maze.

"Well, come on, then," Tarik said absently. "Let's get it over with." And with a final gesture on the datapad, the door gave a heavy clunk and began to move.

As soon as the smallest crack appeared between the upper and lower halves, the tunnel filled with brilliant light. Pain stabbed at the Doctor's eyes, and he shielded them with his hand as he struggled to adjust, his head aching from the glare. Tarik was nearly unaffected; the faceplate of his helmet had darkened to compensate.

 _Humans!_ thought the Doctor, exasperated, as the door ground open. Contrary to every significant leap of evolution they'd ever made, some places just weren't meant to be inhabited.

By the time he managed to get his bearings, Tarik was already moving. The Doctor hurried after, following him up the wide set of stairs beyond the blast door. As soon as he stepped out from the shelter of the tunnel and ascended the stairs, the heat grew exponentially worse. The dry, dusty air seemed to suck the moisture right from his lungs, making him cough and try in vain to wet his mouth. Before long his tongue felt rubbery and his throat burned, and he thanked his unique respiratory system that the choking sensation wasn't too overwhelming.

It was immediately clear that the rough-hewn structure of the Maze was not quite indicative of Tarik's preferred design. The stairs were a lovely dark hardwood, the walls and ceiling seamless gold-streaked stone that formed a high arch above their heads, reminding the Doctor of the entrance hall. Skylights reached up through meters of rock to admit now-unfiltered natural light, blinding him every time he glanced upwards. Brass handrails adorned the walls, immaculately polished, carved and shaped into the most intricate floral patterns. He could already tell that nothing in this house would be unplanned, nothing out of place; the affected sterility of it made him shiver.

Tarik paused on the top step to run his finger along the railing, collecting dust on his glove. The Doctor watched as he rubbed it between his forefinger and thumb, regarding it with an odd, indecipherable expression. Then he wiped his hand on the leg of his suit, and continued on his way.

"Keep up!" he called over his shoulder.

The Doctor huffed. His throat protested the effort, and he coughed a few times in a vain attempt to clear the horrible air from his chest.

There were three archways leading off the landing at the top of the stairs, one on each wall; Tarik strode through the one directly ahead. It brought them out into a hallway that was a bit more typical of a house, albeit quite wide, with plain white walls and a utilitarian carpet stretching along the middle. It couldn't have been less than sixty degrees Celsius, perhaps seventy, and the Doctor found himself beginning to sweat—a rare and rather unpleasant occurrence.

Tarik wasted no time hurrying down the long hall and into a grand, open room, which he supposed must be a foyer of sorts. He swept off to the left, into another oversized hallway, but the Doctor couldn't resist having a look around. They'd emerged at the back of the room, underneath a twin set of curved staircases. The ceiling was high, arched like in a cathedral, and a magnificent chandelier hung from the highest point. _Galdrium_ , the Doctor thought, noting the gentle golden glow cast off by hundreds of carefully arranged crystals—the excess radiation from the sun and the breeze drifting through the room had excited the gems.

The wind came in through the windows, which had shattered inwards, supposedly as a result of the explosion that had destroyed the main generators. Empty iron frames remained. Sheer, silky curtains had blown free of their ties, and they writhed gently with the gusts of hot air. The display cases, ornate mirrors, and even some delicate decorative artifacts had broken too, and the Doctor struggled not to slip on the shards of glass and ceramics as he walked. Dust and sand had settled on every surface, aging the room far beyond its years.

It all transformed the house from luxurious to sinister, no different from any other bombed-out residence on any warring planet in the Nebula. A crooked little smile quirked at the Doctor's lips; funny, he thought, how quickly the tables could turn.

In surveying the foyer, the Doctor had lost sight of Tarik. Now he appeared back at the start of the hall, his fists clenched, a deep furrow in his brow. There was a frantic air about him that made the Doctor just the slightest bit nervous.

"What," he growled, "do you not understand about 'hurry up'?"

The Doctor blinked. "Alright, alright," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets as he cast a last glance around. "Nice house. Too bad, eh?"

Tarik's eyes flashed with anger, recognizing the taunt in his remark. "Too bad," he repeated.

He led them down the hall into a new wing of the mansion, not once slowing to let the Doctor look around. And there was more than enough to look at; Tarik had built up quite a collection over the years, and apparently had no qualms about showing it off. Before long they had reached a bend, where, instead of turning right and continuing, they went left, coming to face a pair of blast doors much like those sealing the Maze from the house—except that these had been carved and sanded into a ludicrously intricate landscape. From the brief glance he'd gotten through the shattered windows, he supposed the scene must be the planet outside.

"Blimey!" he exclaimed, as he got close enough to examine the artwork properly.

"Brilliant work, isn't it?" Tarik's self-satisfied smirk was practically audible. "Cost a fortune. Half of last year's profits. Say what you will about the Essians, they do have some fine artists among them."

The Doctor glanced back at him. "I was going to say wasteful," he corrected. "Why not just look outside?"

Tarik was still smiling. "If you can't appreciate the artwork, Doctor, don't presume to tell me what I should or shouldn't do with my own money."

He eyed the human man critically, but didn't voice any of the numerous scathing replies he had at the ready. Nothing he could say would change his mind, no amount of shouting or taunting; best, then, not to make him angry.

Tarik, seemingly oblivious to his irritation, opened the door and gestured for him to head down the stairwell beyond. The lights attempted to flicker to life as they detected his presence, but the last reserves of the house's power were barely enough to sustain them. The two of them were left in reddish-orange gloom, barely enough to see the steps by; for a minute, the Doctor wondered whether they were heading back into the Maze rather than down to the hangar.

It was, in fact, neither. He knew it before they reached the bottom of the stairs—the way their steps echoed was wrong, the space was far too small. There was no smell of engine grease and ozone. Just dust. The Doctor shoved aside a little flicker of foreboding, ignoring the budding realization that he was just as trapped inside this house as he had been in the Maze.

Tarik, to his credit, seemed to have anticipated the Doctor's perceptivity. As he paused at the bottom of the stairs, the question of where they were forming on his lips, he felt the distinctive sensation of a blaster pistol prodding him in the back. He winced, the pressure pulling the fabric of his shirt taut over his half-healed wound, and cursed himself for letting the man keep his gun.

"Don't try anything," said Tarik, low and deadly serious, just behind his left shoulder. He had done little but bluster and gloat so far, but the Doctor knew instinctively that he meant business now.

He raised his hands away from his pockets, hoping simply to avoid getting shot long enough to reach his TARDIS. She was close—he could sense her now, properly, clear and bright. He almost spared a thought as to why, but the gun was rather distracting.

"This is my house," Tarik hissed, "and _my_ bloody planet, and I've had quite enough of your posturing, Doctor. You don't get a say here—and rest assured, if you forget that, you will watch your friends die and then you will join them."

"Seems to me," murmured the Doctor, "that you need me for something. Why not just ask?"

The gun pressed harder into his back, shaking in Tarik's hand as if the man was desperate to hit him with it. "You're going to rewire the secondary generators," he growled. "They can be accessed from here, their power can be routed from the Maze in an emergency; you're going to hook them up to the house, then get the heat shields running again."

The Doctor stole a glance behind him, frowning. "Can you not do that yourself?"

Tarik shoved him forwards and he stumbled, hands out in front of him in case he tripped over something in the dark. Despite the movement, the lights failed to turn on, and it was a relief when Tarik drew the torch from his utility belt and pointed the beam in front of him. It illuminated a sizeable bank of fuse boxes stretching along the back wall of what the Doctor assumed was a basement of sorts, thick bundles of wires and cables snaking along the floor and up through the ceiling.

"I have no interest in electrical engineering," Tarik said huffily. "And you have your sonic device. The schematics are here–" he held up his datapad– "you can figure it out."

That, in the Doctor's opinion, was a rather flimsy excuse, but he didn't comment.

"And what do I get in return?" he asked, arching an eyebrow in challenge.

A worrying look of glee came over Tarik's face: the smile of a predator basking in the knowledge that his prey was well and truly trapped. A genius possessed of the solution to a tricky problem. (The Doctor knew the look well.)

"Fix the heat shields," he said, "and I'll disable the psychic shielding around the Maze."

The realization hit the Doctor like a blow. "That's why the translation circuits were getting disrupted," he murmured, his hearts sinking inexorably lower. "Why Donna couldn't read the instructions on the medicine."

"Oh yes." Tarik gave a small smile. "You aren't as daft as you look."

He closed his eyes, set his jaw in frustration. Oh, he really should have seen this coming.

"How did you know?" he asked, reluctantly opening his eyes to meet Tarik's smug gaze.

"I heard you," he said, "in the entrance hall. You were talking about how your… TARDIS couldn't translate the writing on the door." The happiness in his features cooled abruptly, his expression turning wary. "I can only assume that a psychic disruption field would also interfere with your ability to pilot the ship, should you attempt to go back for your friends."

The Doctor feared that might be exactly the case. His mind felt much clearer now that their bond had been restored, her presence shining like a beacon, like it hadn't since he'd woken up in the Maze; he was reluctant to dampen it again. He didn't know what might happen, if he attempted to fly her back there, and he wasn't sure he wanted to take the risk. Not with Donna and the others on the line.

He sighed heavily. "Give me the datapad."


End file.
